


you could take my love back

by acastle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:58:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5265194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acastle/pseuds/acastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi, Harry,” he says softly, reaching out to touch his elbow, but he thinks better of it, lets his arm hover between them instead.</p><p>Harry looks over to him, slightly startled, and he studies Niall for a moment. Jaw dropped a bit, and the goat cheese is forgotten in his hands.</p><p>He closes his mouth. Then opens it again, then speaks.</p><p>“I’m sorry. Who are you?”</p><p> </p><p>(Where Harry can't seem to remember who Niall is, and Niall wants him to; furthermore, another amnesia fic, but not in the way you expect.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you could take my love back

**Author's Note:**

> this is ridiculous.
> 
> give it a chance, sorry aha

Harry looks so different, is Niall’s first thought when he sees him.

His hair’s long, curly only at the ends while the rest tumbles in soft waves framing his face, his jaw the slightest bit more defined, his shoulders the slightest bit broader. There are more tattoos on his arm, the collection mismatched but endearing in any case, and he looks so different. But the way he’s pouting at the package of goat cheese in his hands, most probably questioning if it were organic or not, that’s more than familiar. Niall’s struck with how it still makes  him lose his breath slightly, the pinkness of Harry’s mouth, the slight furrow in his brow.

Can’t quite believe it’s been three years since. Since.

He walks over to the cheese section before he loses his nerve, walks over to the boy he’s loved for the last seven years and then when he stands next to him, so close, it’s like those last three years didn’t exist. A mere blip in the grander story that was them.

“Hi, Harry,” he says softly, reaching out to touch his elbow, but he thinks better of it, lets his arm hover between them instead.

Harry looks over to him, slightly startled, and he studies Niall for a moment. Jaw dropped a bit, and the goat cheese is forgotten in his hands.

He closes his mouth. Then opens it again, then speaks.

“I’m sorry. Who are you?”

***

This is how they meet. First sight.

Harry’s sitting by the bar, and it’s a quiet night considering everything. In the midst of final exams before he’s done with his first year of uni, and he’s supposed to be studying, supposed to be revising, but the call of an ice cold margarita that the pub was having a two for one sale on was too strong, and here he was. Sat alone, not many other people in tonight because he’s among the few who don’t care much for grades, as long as he passes he’s fine, sipping his second drink, not drunk but just a bit of a buzz running through his veins. A good feeling.

And this is how he meets him.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” this bloke asks him, appearing out of nowhere and standing on Harry's left side, leaning on the bar counter with an easy smile on his face. Bottle blonde, Harry notes, braces, black jeans, high-tops, tank top and a snapback perched on his head, skin white but he doesn’t come off as pale. He glows.

 _Yes_ , Harry wants to answer, but instead, he doesn’t say anything. Looks back down at his glass, half-full, feeling himself turn red up to his ears, wishing his hair wasn’t so all over the place all of a sudden, wishing he wasn’t drinking a margarita, wishing he didn’t come off as such a _freshman_.

It’s quiet, and Harry thinks for a moment that he’s been left alone, his stomach sinking in disappointment, but a second later, the bloke turns up on his other side, grin still present on his face, not looking the least bit dimmer, and he asks, “What about love at second sight?”

And Harry isn’t bad at flirting, per se. He knows he isn’t, knows he’s not bad-looking and he’s charming but he’s not particularly good at. This. The fact he’s been single for most of high school and he hasn’t really been around yet and he feels so caught off guard for some reason, and he just giggles nervously.

“Not sure if you’re talking to the right person, mate,” he says, eyeing him, and the guy just smiles wider.

“Oh, I am,” he says, offering his palm out to be shaken, and he says, “I’m Niall Horan. Sound Engineering, second year. I’ve never seen you before.”

“Harry Styles, Creative Writing, freshman,” he replies, taking Niall’s hand in his briefly, and his hand is so warm. He doesn’t expect it, at all. “If you were a vegetable, you’d be a cute-cumber.”

He wants to slap himself. It came out without him meaning for it to, and he feels his blush turn into an even deeper shade of red, and Niall laughs at him, is hand an unflinching weight on his arm.

“Sorry, but you owe me a drink, mate,” he says after his laughs have subsided a bit.

“Why?” Harry is confused. This isn’t how it works, usually.

“Because I dropped mine when I saw you,” Niall answers easily, shrugging, grin still so wide on his face. “And that’s not even a line. Literally dropped my pint, look,” he points over to where one of the waiters was mopping the floor, looking a bit disgruntled. “Cheers, Tommo-”

“Shut it Irish, get yourself laid,” the waiter mutters, and Harry doesn’t think blushing this much is good for him. Thinks he’ll die of too much blood circulating on his face, whereas Niall just laughs it off, not even bothered.

“You’re gorgeous,” he says next, in that incredibly easy voice, effortlessly charming and oddly sincere, and Harry is already so gone. “Tell me about yourself,” he asks next, smile gentle and relaxed on his face, and Harry can’t deny him.

.

They talk for hours, until they’re the last ones in the bar with the staff cleaning up around them, setting chairs up on tables and wiping down surfaces, music playing softly in the background as they tell each other seemingly everything.

“Oh,” Harry pauses his story about his pet hamster when he recognizes the song in the song playing from the tiny set of speakers on the counter. “I love this song.”

Niall glances at him, then listens, and smiles as well, then begins to sing along. “ _Baby let’s go get lost, I like that you’re driving slow-_ ”

“You know it?” Harry asks, surprised and quietly pleased.

“Carly Rae isn’t taken seriously enough,” Niall says, shifting slightly on his stool to reach out and turn up the volume on the speakers, in time for the second verse. “This should have been released as a single. That entire album was great, but this song. Amazing.”

“You think so?”

“I do,” Niall says in all seriousness, smile on his face never wavering, and Harry is infinitely endeared.

“Huh. Guess if I were a song, I’d be a single,” Harry says, chuckling at his own joke for a moment, then choking when he realizes how _bad_ it was. “I mean, you know, because I’m, I’m a single Pringle, and-”

“Nothing wrong with being a single,” Niall shrugs, his skin slightly pink, and Harry can tell it’s not from the pint he’d gotten him, “just means you’re the best on the entire album.”

It takes a moment before it sinks in.

Then, Harry kisses him. Holds Niall’s face in his hands as he slips his tongue into his mouth and licks against his teeth and Niall’s biting his lip and they’re so gone.

.

They’re kicked out, Niall’s friend, Louis, pushing them out while muttering darkly about how he hates his job, and they’re laughing as they stumble their way back to the dorms. Niall’s, because it’s not really bigger but it is a single, and they tumble into the room, stripping each other of their clothing as they stay attached at the mouth and their hands roam everywhere, touch everything and skim over skin and Harry feels like he’s on fire, burning and it’s so, so good.

Comes, moaning loudly into the still air as Niall’s got his cock down his throat, then again, after he’s opened up and Niall’s dicking into him with careful, measured thrusts, hitting that spot almost every time and his hands are warm and his grip strong on his hips as he’s fucking Harry, and it makes Harry sob a bit, with how good it all feels. Arches his back as Niall rises to his knees and drills his cock into his arsehole, never faltering, and he spills white all over his stomach almost immediately at the moment his own erection is touched.

Easily the best fuck he’s ever had.

.

He wakes up the next morning with lips tickling the back of his neck, arms circled around his waist, Niall’s skin warm against his back, and a mumbled promise of breakfast.

“Got any raisins?” Niall asks him as they’re sitting in the dining hall, unabashedly tangling their feet together beneath the table as he frowns at Harry’s bowl of oatmeal and sides of bananas, eating through his waffles and bacon.

Harry blushes, but allows his foot to be played with, and answers, “No.”

“How about a date, then?” Niall doesn’t miss a beat, stares into Harry’s eyes as he takes another bite, syrup sweet on his lips.

Harry giggles, not expecting the line, but when Niall waits for his reply patiently, he eventually nods. Slides his hand on to Niall’s open palm, and that’s how it begins.

***

“Who are you?” Harry prompts again, after Niall’s stayed quiet for too long.

No. _No._

"I'm sorry, I don't know you," Harry says, and Niall can't move, can't speak. _Yes you do. I've loved you for seven years. You know me. You know me_. "I'm sorry. I am a Harry, though. Maybe a different one from the one you're looking for?"

"No, you're-"

Niall doesn't let himself finish the sentence. Not with the way Harry eyes are observing him, wide and bright. They haven't changed much, either.

"I'm sorry, but I hope you find him," Harry offers, smiling slightly, then he's gone, walking away with his goat's cheese in his hands, and Niall is devastated.

He walks away, many different emotions swirling around in his chest, and he can’t do this. Cannot cry if Harry is within reach, doesn’t matter if Harry doesn’t even recognize him.

“Niall, matter of life and death,” Louis launches into it the moment Niall sees him in the cereal aisle, and he’s got two boxes in his hands. “Toffee Crisp or Fruity P-”

“I just saw Harry and I walked up to him and said hi. He doesn’t know who I am,” he says in a single breath, fearing if he paused even for the shortest moment, he’ll choke up and break down.

“-ebbles,” Louis drifts off, eyes growing wide and he drops the cereal boxes, stares at him. “I. You. Harry? What?”

“Harry was over looking at some cheese,” Niall explains slowly, tries not to let his heart get the better of him and make him cry in the middle of the bloody grocer, “I thought I’d say hi. He just asked me who I was and walked away. He doesn’t know who I am.”

Louis stares at him, not blinking, for what feels like a minute, then he’s shaking his head, saying, “No. I mean, he can’t not know you, Niall. Four years of his life. You two had a life together, mate. If anything, he should have landed a punch on your face, at the very least-”

“I was expecting something to that effect, Lou, trust me, but. Nothing,” Niall tells him, and he feels numb all over. Makes himself ignore the way his chest is too too tight, the way his heart threatens to rip out of him. It's so much. "He doesn't remember me. He's forgotten about me. Lou-"

His breath catches, and he feels so _stupid._ Cannot believe.

"Okay, we're getting both of these," Louis picks up the dropped boxes, tucked them under his arm, and grabs Niall with his free hand and drags him out. "And we're getting ice cream. You _can't_ be here."

.

"Harry, you bloody idiot," Liam frowns at him as he gets the beers from the fridge, walks over to where Harry's sat on the couch. "What did you do that for?"

"I don't know, Payno," he says, and his head I starting to hurt with the knowledge of how much of an idiot he actually is. "When I saw him, I just. Froze. Didn't know if I wanted to kiss him or hit him and it just. Came out."

"So your solution was to pretend you didn't know who he was?" Liam sums up for him, sounding exasperated and he's giving Harry one of his looks. One he gives him often, where he's had enough of his shit and he's honestly questioning why they're friends. "Harry, it's a stupid idea-"

"What do you suppose I should have done, then, Liam?" he fires back, taking the bottle he's offered and taking a long, frustrated swig, wincing at the taste. "Punch him in the middle of the bloody store? Yell at him? Make him feel like shit?"

"You know that he already feels like shit with the way you conveniently forgot all about him," Liam dishes one out to the back of his head with a snort, and Harry. He knows this. Probably why he chose to pretend he didn’t know Niall in the first place.

“Not letting myself get hurt again, Liam,” he says quietly, taking the smallest sip and deciding that he doesn’t want to get drunk, after all. Would probably just make him feel worse.

Liam glances at him, and then he sighs, looking sad for them both as he settles next to Harry properly and reels him in for a hug. “I know Haz. But lying’s just going to get you into more shit.”

“I know, I know, but I can’t,” he mumbles, and he’s such an idiot. Sniffles when he feels the tears start gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Liam, please, just go along with it. He’s going to ask, he’s going to come find me. I know him. He’s going to want to know what happened. Please, I know it’s not smart, but please.”

“Harry, you can’t just lie about it forever.”

“I know, I know,” he says, pleads. “But just for now. Until he gets tired and moves on. Just until he’s really out of my life. Please, Liam. Please.”

Liam looks at him, studies him with a pout on his face, looking so unsure and not enthusiastic in the slightest, but he sighs again, looking resigned, and acquiesces. “Christ, Harry. Fine. I’ll play along, but this is shit. I’m not that fond of Niall either at the mo, but he was still my friend. And this is a shitty thing you’re doing to him. I know what he did to you was awful, but you’re the last person I’d expect to do this kind of thing to someone you loved-”

“It’s not like I’m doing it out of revenge,” Harry says, but he cuddles him, feeling the slightest bit relieved because he knows Liam, he won’t go back on his word. “Thank you. I know it’s hard on you, but thank you.”

“You’re still an idiot,” is Liam’s reply, and Harry takes it without complaint.

.

“Mate, you sure that really was him?” Louis says, mixing the cookie dough ice cream and Fruity Pebbles together in his bowl haphazardly. “Like, you sure it was your Harry?”

“Wouldn’t forget him if I tried, Lou,” Niall replies, and he’s not even eating his own bowl. Watches the ice cream melt, says quietly, "don't think I could ever not recognize those eyes."

"Yeah, yeah, the bloody green orbs," Louis waves him off before he can continue talking. "Heard enough about Harry's eyes, enough for a lifetime."

"Louis," Niall says, frowns at him, tries to be as nonchalant as possible, but that stupid urge to cry is taking over his chest and making it felt tight and uncomfortable, and Louis must pick up on it, because he slides over and takes the ice cream out of Niall's hands, places their bowls on the table, and wraps him up in a hug. "I fucked up."

"We've been through this a million times, Niall," he says softly. "You did. You really did. But that was a choice you made and you had to deal with the consequences. You can't expect Harry to just fall back in love with you."

"Would be easier to do that if he remembered me."

"Niall-"

"What happened to him?" he asks, his heart aching. "What happened? Why's he forgotten about me? What happened?"

"I don't know," is what Louis offers him, at least looking genuinely sad about it. "I don't know, Niall."

"If I could just talk to him," Niall mumbles, burrowing closer to Louis, and of course, that's when Louis freezes. Goes still in his arms, and Niall can already tell. "Lou-"

"I've not been talking to him," he says immediately, but Niall wriggles out of the cuddle and sits back, staring at him. "Ni, I swear-"

"Okay. I get it, you're not talking to Harry," Niall starts, voice slow and with the slightest, barely there hint of disappointment. "But I guess you're still in contact with Payno, aren't you?"

Louis is silent, and it's all the answer Niall needs.

“He comes to the club sometimes, Ni, I can’t just ignore him every time,” Louis tells him, and Niall doesn’t feel betrayed, really. More resigned and sad. “And when we do talk it’s not about our best mates’ failed relationship, like we’d keep our drinking conversation that heavy.”

"You don't have to talk to him, is the thing," Niall says, and he knows he sounds petulant, but. "Didn't think it was in the owner's duty to talk to regulars-"

"Niall, don't be a twat," Louis scowls at him, and it's more serious, and Niall feels sufficiently awful. "He's been a good friend. To both of us. No need to get mad at me for talking to him."

"Sorry, Lou," Niall mumbles, and he doesn't know what to do, really. "I. I know, I'm sorry. I just. I want to talk to him."

"Then we'll find a way I talk to him," Louis tells him, and because he's Louis, he reaches over and pours the contents of Niall's bowl into his own. "I know how much he meant to you. I'll get you to talk to your boy."

When Louis props his feet up in his lap and eats all the ice cream and cereal left, Niall doesn't complain.

***

Liam and Niall get along so well, and it makes Harry immediately relieved. Watches his best-friend-since-middle-school/roommate and his not-quite-boyfriend-yet laugh over their beers, looking already so comfortable with each other.

"I like him," Liam tells him later as they're walking back to their dorm, after Niall had bade them goodnight, given Harry a gentle kiss, unaffected by the stares they had gotten from the jealous sorority girls who had been eyeing them from the bar all night, clearly thinking on getting either of them for the night, and went on his way in the opposite direction. "He's a good lad."

"Yeah, he is," Harry replies, can't stop the smile in his face.

"Makes you really happy, yeah?"

Harry glances at him when he's asked the question, and Liam's got that fond look on his face, like he already knows what he's going to say.

He says it anyway. "Yeah, he really does."

.

"Got a thing for showing off your tits, then?" is the first thing Louis says when he meets Harry properly as Niall's, well, as Niall's, raised eyebrow at the way his shirt is unbuttoned to his stomach, revealing a sliver of the butterfly on his abdomen and the swallows on his chest.

Niall internally groans, his grip on Harry's thigh tightening the slightest bit under the table, but Harry just smiles at him softly. Turns to look at Louis, and says in all seriousness, "Free the nipple."

They're all silent for a moment, then Louis bursts into laughter, almost tearing up at it, and he tells Niall, "Can already tell I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this one."

In Louis terms, it mostly means that he's going to endlessly make fun of Harry for everything. In deeper analysis of Louis terms, it is one of the stronger means of expressing his affection.

Niall takes it as a win, watching quietly with a grin in his face as Louis immediately tries to twist Harry's almost-exposed nipple.

.

"He likes you," Niall tries to assure Harry again, tangling his fingers in Harry's hair as he burrows his face into Niall's naked chest. Tries not to react when his hip is squeezed, Harry pressing into the bruises his hands had just made a little earlier. "He just has a weird as fuck way of showing it."

"Just want your best friend to like me," Harry admits, leaning up to trace the column of Niall's throat with his lips.

It's quiet again, the early, early hours of the morning making the air still around them, makes the atmosphere of Niall's room so comfortingly intimate. Niall can't stop staring down at him, taking in the slope of his nose, his lips, slightly bit-swollen and gorgeous, his skin, inked and tanned, and. He's gorgeous. Feels his breath catch in his throat, the way it's wont to do when he's with Harry.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Harry asks him softly, finally taking notice of how Niall's quietly been observing him, taking him in.

"Just wanted to," he replies. "You know. Take you in, before I wake up from this dream."

It takes a moment before it finally catches up to Harry. Usually takes a moment, when Niall truly tries to be genuine, and he doesn't think he's ever been so sincere with another person before. Sees Harry turn red at his words, trying to hide it, and Niall is so endeared.

Kisses the top of his head and smooths over Harry's back with his hand, revels in the way that Harry just pulls him in closer, so close, until he knows that it would physically hurt, once he's separated from his boy.

***

This is how it starts over.

Louis insists on doing some stealth thing, though Niall thinks it’s impractical, because, _“Why don’t you just ask Liam?”_

_“Because that’s boring and lazy, Niall, you’re more creative than that-”_

So here they were, after searching for Harry’s name on Google and finding out that he was just promoted as the new features editor for _The Independent_ , overall head of Saturday-released _The Independent Magazine,_ the youngest editor at 25, and. Niall could not be more proud of him. Remembers Harry talking about how much he wanted to make a difference and knowing that Creative Writing was seen as a soft choice sometimes, but. Here he was.

Niall, through Louis’ prodding and effort, gets in contact with the paper, and they make an appointment, and this is too much effort for something that should have been simple.

“Niall Horan, sound engineer for XL Recordings, Zayn Malik got me an appointment?” he tells the receptionist, blatantly ignoring the way Louis is bouncing about behind him.

“Ni,” someone new voices out, accent deep and Niall looks ‘round to find Zayn walking towards him, grin on his face and looking much too handsome in his glasses. Ever the perpetual art student. “You’re early.”

“Yeah, well,” Niall shrugs, coming forward to give him a hug. Been some time since the last time they had talked. Four years, after Zayn had left for the scholarship in France and been making waves ever since. “What did you have today?”

“Working on a digital piece, they’ve asked me to contribute again,” Zayn replies, “plus they’ve got an editorial? Something about garbage being the new posh, can’t fuck with it, but it’s fun to photograph.”

“Can imagine,” Niall says, watching as Louis and Zayn give each other stiff nods. Louis took Zayn leaving really hard, but. “Thanks for getting us in, mate-”

“Like they’d ignore Niall Horan, preferred sound engineer of choice of The xx and Friendly Fires,” Zayn tells him with a scoff, and he’s leading them to the elevators, jabbing at the floor number, and says as the doors close, “So you’re here to see Haz?”

“I’ve, um. About that-”

“He doesn’t remember Niall,” Louis says for him, and just rolls his eyes at the pout Niall gives him. “Don’t suppose you’ve talked to him?”

“Haven’t really kept in touch, since I’ve left,” Zayn answers, frowning a bit. “I mean, I know what happened between the two of you, but. Like. Since I’ve started doing some work here, he hasn’t tried to come talk to me or anything. I know he’s been with the paper for a while, even before me.”

“Course he wouldn’t talk to his ex’s best friends,” Louis mutters, elbowing his way through as the doors ding open. “Don’t suppose he remembers us, either?”

“Well, why don’t you just ask him?” Zayn says, walking them over to the features department, desks and cubicles and people looking too busy on their phones or eyes trained on their computer screens and it’s pretty hectic, seeing everything. He walks through the tables easily, Niall and Louis struggling to follow, and he greets the secretary, “Hey Olly, Harry in?”

“Yeah, should be,” Olly replies, smiling, and he gestures over casually, and Zayn takes it as an invitation to enter, so he opens the door, waits for Niall and Louis to enter first.

Niall still can’t get over how different he looks.

He’s facing out the floor-to-ceiling window, forehead leaning on the glass, nose rubbing along the surface, and. That’s all he’s doing. Not on the phone, not doing it for any other reason than just. Doing it.

Niall is so reminded of how he used to do that to the car window, on longer drives during the harsher months of winter where Niall had no choice but to drive with the windows up and heating on full blast, Harry’s least favorite kind of drives.

It makes his breath catch in his throat.

“Harry?” Zayn’s the one to call him out, and Harry turns at his voice, and his eyes widen slightly when he sees that he’s not the only one who’s come to see him.

“Zayn Malik,” he greets, though surprised, with a small smile. “It’s good to finally meet you. Love the work you’ve done for the paper, loved that editorial you did with the graffiti you did.”

“Thank you,” Zayn says it with a quiet kind of strain, realizes that the situation. The situation is messy. “Um, this is Louis, and this is Niall, friends from uni.”

Harry looks at them, face blank, and he gives them a smile. Unfamiliar, foreign on his face, so different from what he used to give them. DIfferent. Different. “Hi. I’m Harry.”

Louis shakes his hand briefly, tells him his name, and when he turns to Niall, he can’t get himself to move. Stares at the boy he’s loved for seven years, and it hurts. How he fucked everything up, and how Harry can’t even recognize him. Seven years.

“Niall,” he says quietly. Takes his hand, grips for a moment, then it’s gone.

Harry’s still so warm.

“I remember you,” Harry mutters suddenly, and Niall jerks his head up. “Yeah. From the shop, the other day? Did you find your Harry?”

It’s a loaded question. Niall’s not quite sure on how to answer it truthfully. “I-”

“SO, Harry,” Louis interrupts, because as much as he is a prick, he knows when Niall genuinely needs his help, and he’ll never deny him that. “Congratulations on your new position. Saw it over Twitter.”

“Oh, thank you,” he says in that humble way that Niall knows him for. “Thank you, still getting used to this office, but. It’s pretty cool. Still shocked about it all, because I don’t remember my uni years, know I took up Creative Writing, according to my diploma, but. I don’t know. Can’t quite recall what I’ve learned those last four years. But it’s, like, my brain just does it without me telling it to, if you know what I mean? Feels automatic, like-”

“-It just gives you the words you need, even if you don’t know if it makes any sense in the end,” Niall says, and. He’s said that before. Many times, over many nights where he’s forced to stay awake over maths and getting the sound right and Harry’s up because of coffee, energy drinks, whatever he can get his hands on so he can stay awake a few more hours to finish a paper. It’s always what he says, when he’s bullshitting and always manages to get top marks, anyway.

Harry looks at him, straight into his eyes, and his face is annoyingly blank, again, before he smiles, a little closer to his old smile, and says, “Yeah, exactly.”

It makes Niall’s chest hurt. Unreasonably.

“If you don't mind me asking,” Louis says, “you said you don't remember your uni years. What happened to make you forget?”

“Oh, no worries,” he says with a smile. So unfamiliar. “Um, I was in an accident? My family tells me it was a little after graduation, or something, car accident. Drunk driver went hurtling into my car when his lane was on a red light, so. Yeah, that's what I know. Hit my head and broke the windshield, and, well. Don't remember much from then.”

“I see,” Louis says, and he glances at Niall in concern.

He can't move. Feels his chest tighten at the thought of Harry being hurt, of him being in an accident and being alone and. Selfishly, him not being there for him, when it happened.

“Well, it's good to see that you're okay,” Zayn says with a smile, and he launches into a few questions about the editorial he's doing and Niall pretends to listen, pretends to pay attention, when really, he’s thinking about how much he doesn't remember. How he doesn't know Louis, or Zayn, or him. Doesn't know their history, the grander story that was them. How he had ruined it, how.

Whenever Harry looks over to him, it's with a different kind of smile. Not as soft, not as warm. Still sincere, but with a confused, curious edge, and it makes Niall's heart hurt.

When he looks at Harry, he sees the boy he's loved for so long, the same mannerisms, same nuances and it's still him, but. But at the same time, there's this stranger, who's come to settle himself in Harry's body, makes him so different. A stranger to Niall, and. He knows.

Knows he needs to know more.

.

Niall goes over to the club before ten in the evening, under Louis’s orders, and he sits on the second to the last stool on the bar, the end where all the specialty liquor is displayed, and it's surprisingly quiet tonight. The usual crowd not as large, the music not as loud.

“Niall?”

The voice is achingly familiar, one he’s not heard in ages and it pains him, how he had allowed for that to happen. When he turns and sees Liam Payne looking at him with kinder eyes than he deserves, smiling slightly in a way he knows is supposed to be polite but is reluctant anyway, and it’s been so long, Niall realizes.

It was his doing, though. No one to blame but himself.

“Liam, hi,” he greets, standing to give him a short hug in greeting, and to his relief, Liam takes the stool next to him. “Been a long time.”

“Yeah, it has,” he says, and Niall knows it’s just because that Liam can never be outrightly mean to anyone, that he doesn’t say the quiet, but very present, _‘because you ruined Harry’s life.’_

“How’ve you been?” he asks, because he does want to know. Truly. “I heard you’ve gotten engaged since I last saw you. Lou mentioned you’ve come by with your fiance a few times?”

“Yeah, I have,” Liam replies with a soft smile on his face. Niall knows this one is completely sincere. “Her name’s Sophia. Known her for the longest time, then I got my shit together few years back and just asked her out, and. Well, pretty glad I did. She’s the best.”

“Congratulations,” he says, smiling and feeling happy that at least someone is getting something good out of life. It’s a rare thing, nowadays. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, Irish,” Liam says, and the old nickname makes Niall indescribably happy. Not for long, because Liam launches right into it without much hesitation, “Listen, Ni, I don’t want to come off as rude or anything, but I know you’re not here for me, or you’re just here coincidentally. I haven’t seen you in three years, or something. You’re here to ask about Harry, yeah?”

He’s quiet for a moment, then he admits, “Liam. What happened to him?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He,” he tries to say, thought it would get easier, revealing to people that his love doesn’t remember who he is, but it hasn’t, at all. Just gotten more difficult, if anything. Makes it that much more real. “I saw him the other day, Liam. I went up to him and said hi, but. He doesn’t remember me.”

Liam stays quiet, watches him under a careful gaze, then offers, “I wouldn’t blame him.”

“I don’t, I don’t either,” Niall replies, feeling a new stab of guilt, as if he hasn’t felt it since the day he walked out on Harry. “But, Liam, I just. I asked him, said he was in an accident. I-”

“It was a little after you left, mate,” Liam launches right into it, knowing the question before it’s even properly asked. “Harry went out for a drive, to get away from everything that happened, for a bit. A driver that wasn’t paying attention ran a red light, and hit the car. Harry wasn’t wearing his seatbelt because he wasn't thinking straight, went flying and hit the windshield. Broke the glass and landed on the hood. Broke a couple of ribs, an arm, his foot, but the hit to the head took its toll. Retrograde amnesia. Doesn’t remember anything after high school. We’ve tried, but the last thing he remembered was waking up from his first hangover. Lost four years of his life.”

Niall listens, feeling his heart drop to his stomach and his chest get incredibly, uncomfortably tight, like he’s losing his breath and he can’t get any air into his brain, can’t take any of it in.

“So he,” he tries to look for the proper words, “he can’t remember? Won’t remember any of it?”

“They said, along the way, it might come back to him,” Liam tells him, but he’s frowning the slightest bit, which means. “But. It’s not like I’ve been trying to help him remember, but he just doesn’t. I doubt it will ever come back to him, at this point.”

Niall nods, and. He doesn’t know how to feel.

“Why didn’t I know about it until now?” he asks, and his voice is quiet, meek. Completely unlike him.

Liam shifts, looking uncomfortable, and squirms a bit in his seat, and he can’t look Niall in the eye. “Please, please don’t take this the wrong way, but. When it happened, Anne, Gemma, and I. We mutually decided that, um. You didn’t have to know. It would just cause everyone more stress and we didn’t think Harry would have been too well pleased to see you, if ever he remembered. We just didn’t want him to get aggravated. We didn’t do it to hurt you, Niall-”

“I get it,” he cuts Liam off, shakes his head, and he feels his nails dig into his palm hand in a fist too tight, knuckles white and he gets it, understands it wasn’t meant for that reason, but it doesn’t change anything. Still hurts.

“Sorry, Niall-”

“No, I’m. I’m sorry,” he says, because he feels like it's the only thing that can make it out of his throat. Means it in many different ways, and he know Liam enough to know that he’ll understand, in every way he means.

“I know you are,” Liam says softly. “But. It doesn’t change things, Ni. You still left him. That was shitty of you. It’s caused him so much pain.”

“I know,” Niall closes his eyes, feels the pain in his heart bloom existentially and he feels his guilt take over his entire being. “I know, I’m sorry-”

“Not the right person to be saying that to,” he says, and it’s not meant to make Niall feel worse. Says it as a fact, as if it were obvious, which. It was. “And, as much as this might make you feel bad, which I’m not trying to do, but. Sometimes, I think it was good for him, to forget, because I’ve never seen him so hurt as he was then.”

And Niall’s big enough to admit that it hurts when Liam says it, because he knows it somewhat makes sense. But. He never, _never_ , meant to hurt Harry. Never walked out on him because he didn’t love him anymore. Only did it because he was scared. But he knows, it’s never an excuse to walk out on the person you love.

“But I know it’s not fair, either,” Liam says. “I know you made him really happy, and he made you really happy. I know you really did love him. And I know those four years were also some of the best of his life. I know it was.”

“Sorry,” he repeats, because he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what else to do.

“Can I give you a bit of advice, then?” Liam then says, looking him in the eye and Niall could never deny him. Liam always treated him so well even when he was the biggest shit in the world, so he owes him. He nods, and Liam tells him, “Leave Harry be. He’s got this new life in front of him, and he’s worked so hard to get where he is. I know it’s hard, but. He can’t get hurt again-”

“I wouldn’t hurt him, Liam,” Niall says, because he knows now that he wouldn’t. Knows he made a massive, massive mistake three years ago, and that Harry was _it,_  was just too much of a twat and an idiot to see it then, but he would never hurt Harry on purpose. “I would never.”

“Okay, you may say that, Ni, but none of us know what will happen in the future. I don’t know if Harry will ever remember, or if he won’t, or. I don’t know. It’s too much, and I would never overwhelm him. I would never force him to remember something or force him to be the version of him I knew. Bringing you into everything, it’s too risky. I can’t do that to him, I’m sorry-”

“I get it,” he repeats himself, and he does, but he doesn’t necessarily agree with it. “But that would be up to him, wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, yes,” Liam concedes, but the following words sound final, sound like it’s the last of this conversation, “but. For his sake, Niall, please. Don’t force yourself into giving him the option in the first place.”

.

“Fuck you, Harry,” is the first thing Liam says once he gets back from the pub, frown etched on to his face. “Don’t like being an accomplice in your alibi-”

“You told him, then?” Harry asks him, wringing his hands together nervously.

“I did, but fuck you again,” Liam tells him, and he looks so disappointed. “You’re going to get yourself in deep shit. What’s so wrong with telling him the truth and punching him in the face?”

“I almost told him, when he came to see me,” he says, and he feels so fucking vulnerable. “I almost told him that I didn’t forget him, but. I don’t know. He remembers the stupid things I used to say, Liam, I couldn’t, so I just made something up then-”

“You’re going to end up hurting a lot of people if you’re not careful, Harry, you most of all,” Liam tells him firmly, and Harry knows. He really does.

“I’m sorry,” he says, mumbling it, and he hears Liam sigh, before he’s gathered into a hug.

***

NIall first meets Harry’s mum and sister during the hols of his second year, go over to Cheshire for New Year’s Eve and go back with Harry on the fifth, and it makes Harry a little nervous, but he doesn’t know why.

Not like he and Niall are really official, or anything. Knows that he’s special to Niall, and Niall is special to him, and that they’re not really hitting it with anyone else aside from each other, and they’re always out on dates and it’s nice and he just doesn’t know what to call it. But he’s more than okay with what they have now, the fact that Niall can meet his mum and charm her off her feet, helping out with the cooking because aside from baking, Harry’s pretty shit in the kitchen, or that Gemma can say without any irony that Niall is way out of Harry’s league within seconds of meeting him, then invite him to look over old albums and make fun of Harry in every other picture. He’s alright with it, because it feels right and he’s never been so happy and he _is_ alright with it.

So he doesn’t know, while he’s sat on his childhood bed and Niall’s just gone out of his personal bathroom, one towel slung low on his hips and rubbing his head with another to get rid of excess moisture, and he blames the fact that he could see the droplets of water running down Niall’s torso, pale and inviting and beautiful, why he asks, “What are we?”

He freezes, and doesn’t dare look over to where Niall has stilled. Brings the towel down, and his voice sounds incredibly steady when he says, “We’re together.”

“Yeah, but,” his brain is telling him to shut up, to just get under the covers so Niall can go on his merry way and head on to the guest room they insisted on though Anne had said, _“I’m not under any illusion that you haven’t shared a bed before, he can stay in your room, love-”_

“Harry,” Niall tells him softly, sits in front of him and sets his hands on his thighs. Harry can feel his warmth seep through his joggers. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I made it clear to you before, how I feel about you.”

He pauses, and Harry asks quietly, “And that is?”

“That I care about you, very much,” Niall tells him, soft smile on his face and the faintest blush blooming on his skin. “You are what I want, for as long as you’ll have me, you are the best part of my day, even when all you do is smile. It’s enough, for me. I don’t know if you feel that way about me, but. I know what I feel about you. I love you.”

Harry's chest feels that painful, satisfying urge, the kind he gets when he's overwhelmed with joy and happiness and gratitude, and he blinks rapidly, trying to keep his tears at bay.

“Niall,” he says on an exhale, so thankful that he's found him, so thankful that he exists.

Niall just smiles at him, and tells him quietly, “You know, I think you might be a ninja, or summat.”

“Why?” Harry asks him, though he's got an idea of what he's going to say.

“Because you've snuck your way into my heart,” he says with the slightest shrug, and his smile widens, brings Harry's hand up to press against where his heart should be, and Harry leans forward to kiss him sweetly.

***

The next time Harry sees Niall is completely by accident.

He forgets, forgets that he’s not supposed to remember anything from his years in university, and made the stupid choice of going to that one bookstore he had found by accident when he and Niall were out, looking for a place to settle when an unexpected snowstorm had blindsided London. Stumbled into the small store, straight out of a pretentious, coffee-glasses-and-leather-loving writer’s wet dream at the first look, but filled with vintage early editions of many, many books Harry has loved over the years, the little shop containing as much charm as the old couple that owned it. Legitimate vintage, then.

It had become something of a safe haven for him, and by extension, Niall. It was one of their spots, but really, it was _his_ place of quiet, one of the few. So, he’d never stopped going, even after Niall left, but he realizes how stupid it might be now, and it’s not fair, because this was his spot. Niall’s never loved it the way he has, and it’s not. Fair. For him to just come in out of nowhere. It’s not _fair._

Because, right in the corner of his eye from where he’s perched on the top of the ladder going up the open loft area, where all the vintage copies of GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and such were kept in the special collection, Niall comes in, alone, looking so soft in his white henley, blue jeans and boots, his hair swooping gently in the way he’d always loved. Smiles fondly at Helen, who looks surprised, but nonetheless pleased to see him again. Gets up from her seat to pull him down for a hug, squeeze at his sides and pinch his cheeks, as she used to.

Of course, because he’s who he is, he manages to somehow trip as he tries to retreat to the loft to hide, and instead, falls forward, crashes down to the floor.

“ _Harry_ ,” he hears Niall exclaim, and he groans internally, blushes so hard he can feel the heat radiating off him. Feels familiar, strong hands hold his arm, his waist, guiding him to stand again, and it's been so long since Niall's held him. Feels his throat close up at the thought.

“I'm fine, thank you,” he says in as level a voice he can muster, brushes himself off. Niall doesn't let go of him, but his hold loosens slightly, as if giving him the choice to move away if he so wanted. He doesn't.

“Are you sure?” Niall asks him softly, and Harry just nods, gives him a smile that he hopes doesn't look too forced. “Okay, if you’re-”

“I am, I'm okay,” he says, and Niall takes it as an order to let go of him. He moves away, and Harry misses his touch immediately. Berates himself endlessly, internally.

Niall looks at him quietly, face not quite blank, and he gives Harry a pained smile, and makes to leave. And Harry should leave him to it, should let him walk out of his life. This is what he asked for, forced Liam into helping him with. Make Niall leave him alone.

But, despite all that, if there's one thing Harry will never, ever want, even though it would be for the better, is to let Niall Horan walk out on him with no explanation. Again.

“I've never seen you here before,” Harry calls out, puts on an innocent face as he watches Niall turn to look at him. Because Niall hasn't been here in three years. Harry would know, because he's been here at least twice a week, every week since then, and he's never seen him come by. The look on Helen’s face tells him that she hasn't seen him either.

She looks between them, confused, but she nods quietly before retreating to the back office, leaving them alone. Harry wishes she hadn't gone.

“Yeah, well, I haven't been here for a while,” Niall offers, sounding unsure and shy, very unlike him. “Holds a lot of memories.”

“Painful?” Harry prods, wants to know.

“No, not at all,” he replies, “some of my happiest. It's just. Hard, going here.”

Harry nods, and he remembers that day he and Niall had found it, the memory of it rushing into his mind so fast it makes him a little dizzy. Remembers going up to the loft, after that first hour of perusing over the rare collections, and he was reading a first edition of The Little Prince, printed in 1943, pages brown and aged and loved. As he read, Niall sat next to him, placed Harry between his legs, and he rested his chin on his shoulder. Kissed his cheek, his temple, his ear, every few pages, sitting quietly with him, fully content.

It's one of Harry's favorite moments. Painful, now, but. Cherished, all the same.

“I see,” he says, lamely. It's quiet between them, awkward in a way Harry's not used to, and he looks down at the ground, not sure of what to say. So he asks, still not looking at Niall, “So why are you here, now?”

“Oh,” Niall says, and it comes out so soft. “I just. Felt appropriate, to. Um. To come and see it, for old time’s sake.”

Harry stays quiet, and Niall's words make his chest go the slightest bit tighter. It feels like another goodbye.

“Did I,” he says, decides against every sign telling him that this is probably the worst way to go about things, he decides to ask, “Did I know you? Before? I, I can't help but feel like you were someone to me, before.”

And it's there. The question hangs between them, and it makes it silent, heavy and he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what Niall will say, what he _wants_ Niall to say. Doesn’t know what will hurt more, if he tells the truth, or if he lies.

“You did, you knew me,” is Niall’s answer, voice quiet and soft. Harry feels it ache, echoing within him, and he knows from his tone that he’s not leaving it at that. “You were really special to me.”

“Special?” Harry plays dumb, but his heart is beating out of his chest. “Like, best friends?”

Niall doesn’t say anything again, his eyes dropping, sadness glazed over. “Yes, you were my best friend. But, you were much more than that.”

“So, we dated?” he says slowly, makes his eyes wide and looks at Niall. Wants to see how he’ll react to this.

He smiles, sad and fond, tells him, “We did. For four years.”

“Oh,” Harry says, and it comes out much smaller than he intends. He said the truth. “So. Why didn't you tell me before?”

Niall shakes his head at that, sad smile still on his face, and tells him, “I'm. I'm sorry, this was a bad idea, I didn't think that you would be here. I should never have come-”

“No, Niall, wait,” Harry says, holds his arm as he turns away. “Was it a bad question? I'm sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Niall says, not looking in his direction at all. “Was never your fault.”

It's a loaded statement, and Harry can feel it's weight compressing his chest. Keeps his voice steady as he says, “Why?”

A pause, then. “Because I hurt you before. I hurt you because I was selfish, and. I don’t want to hurt you, ever again, even by accident. So I’m not going to even entertain the possibility of that even happening, for your sake.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, not understanding.

Niall smiles sadly again, and Harry hates that look on his face. Always hated it whenever he would try to hide the fact that he was hurting just to make Harry feel comfortable. “It means, you're the priority. Always have been, so. Your life's been amazing. I'm so happy for you.”

“What do you mean?” Harry just asks again, because he doesn't understand.

“I'm sorry, I am,” Niall says. “I promise, I won't interfere in your life.”

“Niall,” Harry says on an exhale, and this is what he said he wanted. Doesn't know why it makes him feel so strange now, like his insides are twisted and he can't unknot them, no matter how much he mentally assures himself that this is right.

“Sorry,” Niall tells him again, with a final smile, and a lingering touch, a simple graze of his fingers on the back of Harry's hand, over his knuckles, and it's enough to make Harry have to close his eyes briefly as he trembles. “I'm happy I got to see you one last time, at least. I hope you stay happy, yeah?”

“I,” Harry's words get caught before they can leave his lips, as if his body were forcing the truth to stay hidden. Niall takes it as his goodbye, though.

“It was good to see you, Haz,” Niall tells him quietly, and the old nickname makes Harry's breath catch. Niall doesn't come forward to hug him, or kiss him in the cheek, or anything that Harry expects him to do. Just smiles, tight and forced on his face, one last stroke of his fingers over the back of his hand, and he’s off. Walks out the door and out of Harry’s life, and Harry feels awful about it all.

Feels like. He’s made a mistake, wishing for this.

.

“Great work today, lads,” Niall says, grinning as he shuts down the lights in the studio. “It's looking to be a great record.”

“Thanks, Niall,” Chris climbs on to his back, making him laugh in surprise and almost tumble to the floor. “Oi, give me a ride-”

“Not on your life, you're a grown man, get off,” he laughs, pushes him off amidst even more laughter as the others exit the studio. “Christ-”

“Niall?” Cher calls him as they pass through the hall to leave, “there’s someone out in the lobby waiting for you, been waiting there for a while now.”

“Did they leave a name?” he asks, waves as the band take the lift to the parking building.

“No, but he is a looker, though,” she says, winks at him cheekily before she leaves him be, and it makes him pause in his steps.

Thinks about it briefly, before he concludes, though not convincingly, that it wasn’t likely, for him to show up here. Tells himself not to expect anything, not to get his hopes up, because it’s impossible.

So when he sees Harry waiting on one of the lounge sofas, he’s more than a little pleasantly surprised, confused, but happy, all the same. Feels the corners of his mouth quirk up the slightest bit, because he can not ever be happy when he sees him, no matter what.

“Niall,” Harry stands up as he greets him, and the small smile on his face is nervous. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he replies. Harry’s got his hair in a bun tonight, the way he did back in their last year. Makes the angles of his face sharper, more pronounced. “What are you doing here?”

“I,” Harry starts, but he loses his words. Looks frustrated with himself as he struggles to find the right thing to say, and before Niall can ask him what’s wrong, he continues, “I just. I needed to see you, for some reason. Like, there’s this voice in the back of my head telling me that I needed to come see you. Like, I know that things are so different now, and you probably don’t feel the same way about me anymore, but. I can’t help but feel like there’s more to us. That it really meant something, to us both. And no one else will tell me what really happened, and I just wanted to see you-”

“Harry,” Niall says softly, sadly, shaking his head, “I can’t-”

“Can’t what?” Harry counters, moving a step forward. “There was more to us, and I just want to know what it was. I want to know, and I think I have the right to know, don’t I? And I know, you’re the only person I can come to for this. You were in my life for probably such a long time, were probably such a big part of it. I’d just like to know. Please, tell me about us. Please.”

Niall stares at him, and he’s so different now, and yet. His voice still has the same lilt, he still stands the same way, slightly slouched as if slightly uncomfortable, leaning towards his right, still has those lips, rose red and it’s all familiar. But Niall doesn’t know this Harry, and this Harry doesn’t know him. It would hurt exponentially, to tell him the truth and have him judge him and hate him.

“Let’s take a walk,” is Niall’s answer, and Harry looks slightly surprised, eyes widening as if he wasn’t expecting to get this far, but more than that, Niall notes that he looks. Relieved.

.

“I proposed during the holidays of your last year in uni,” Niall says, once they’ve gotten their teas to go, and they’re walking along the quiet district of bookshops and antique stores and small record shops. His haunt, another place he had found with Harry back in uni. Passes the record store, closed for the day but he can still hear the music coming from inside. Closes his eyes at the memory of him and Harry sitting in one of the tiny listening rooms, Harry holding his hand as he sat on Niall’s lap as they listened to Sinatra. Knew from the moment that Harry started singing along with him softly to ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ that he loved him. “You went up to Ireland with me, to my hometown, Mullingar. Small place, everyone seems to know everyone, that kind of thing. We’d been together about four years at that point, I was a fresh grad with a small job at this amazing recording studio and you were my entire world. It made sense.

“It was the 27th of December, night in, my Da was out for a few hours with his work friends, my brother and his wife and my nephew were having dinner in one of the nice restaurants. Just me and you, and we were just in the living room, fire lit up and watching ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.’ And you said, like, out of the blue, ‘ _I must be a snowflake, because I’ve fallen for you_.’”

Harry snorts, takes a sip from his tea before saying, “You remember everything.”

“Well, I figured someone should,” he shrugs, tries not to make a big deal out of it, but Harry looks over to him, face dropped. “No, it’s, it’s not a big deal. It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry mumbles, holds his wrist, and Niall has to close his eyes.

“It’s okay.”

“Was that a thing, then?” he asks. He lets go, his fingers brushing over his knuckles. “Ridiculous lines?”

“Yeah, it was,” Niall says, and he cannot help the sad smile on his face. “You had the worst jokes, and mine weren’t any better, but it made you so endearing. I was so utterly fond of you.”

Harry blushes, but Niall goes on, “And I said in return, ‘ _Of all the curves on your body, your smile is my favorite._ ’”

Harry outright laughs at that, and Niall joins him easily.

“Ridiculous.”

“It really was,” Niall concedes, “but all you did after laughing at me for it was grin, like, positively beam, at me. Held up your dimples with your fingers, and you were so beautiful and I adored you so much, and like. I didn’t really plan it, just.” He decides to tell him the truth, a truth the Harry from before didn’t know either, “Like, I’d had the ring for over a year at that point. Was just waiting for you to graduate properly and for us to settle into a stable life, but I was so sure about you. I knew that you were it, but I just wanted us to be in a good place financially, on our own, you know? But you were smiling and making me so happy, and I asked you, _‘You know what you would look good in?_ ’”

“And?” Harry asked on bated breath, turning to look at him as they slowly come to a halt.

Niall pauses. Grips his empty cup, and tells him, “ _‘A wedding ring.’_ ”

He can see the way Harry inhales sharply at the words, like he’s remembering the moment like him, but. He knows better. Can’t let himself get his hopes up for this.

“And you were so surprised. You thought it was a joke, at first,” Niall tells him, “Then I went and got the ring from inside one of my socks, in my room. Then you cried. And I cried. And you said yes, even though I didn’t ask the question outright. I never needed to, when it was you. You just knew.”

“We were happy,” Harry says, a conclusion.

“Yeah, really, really happy,” Niall tells him, feels the painful grip of the memory in his chest. “And, like, we didn’t really know what we were doing with the planning, and we were driving Louis, Liam, all our mates and family up the wall because we just weren’t worried about it all, you know? Just kept laughing and being too relaxed so they had to be the ones to stress out about venues, catering and everything. We were so, so good.”

“Then?” Harry prods, nervously, quietly.

“And, the day came,” Niall tells him, feeling shame and regret crawl up his throat. “And you walked down that aisle, and you were everything I wanted in life and more. And I walked out on you. I ran once you got to me because I got scared.”

Harry grips his cup, not yet quite empty, and some of his tea spills over the rim. Niall can see him blink rapidly, his chest moving in a way Niall recognizes, the way it does when he’s trying to stave off tears.

“You. You left me because you were scared?” he asks, voice so quiet and Niall feels so much worse.

“I was so overwhelmed, and the reality of the future seemed too real,” Niall replies. “I regretted it the moment I got out of there. When I saw your family’s face as I was running out, Liam’s, your friends’. Yours, most of all. When I looked back for a moment and saw you so devastated. To think I was so fucking stupid to do that to you. I’d never felt more ashamed. I loved you, I loved you and I did that to you. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Harry’s crying, palm against his heart, as if to try to comfort the phantom ache of something he doesn’t remember, but Niall has this notion, that his heart remembers the way it had felt when he had left.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, to the person who deserves to hear it. “I’m sorry, for doing that to us. To you. I promised myself I’d never hurt you, but I did in the worst way possible. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Did, did you,” Harry says, between great heaving breaths and sobs. “Did you just not love me, anymore? Maybe?”

“No, Harry, I never stopped loving you, ever,” Niall tells him, comes closer and wipes at his tears, thumbs sweeping softly on his cheeks. Knows it’s not in his place, but he can never see Harry crying, and he’s not pushed away. “I was stupid and completely fucked up and was a coward, but it never had anything to do with you. I’ve loved you for seven years. I love you even now.”

“Niall-”

“I’m sorry,” he tells him quietly, the words already on the tip of his tongue, knows he’s said too much. “I’m sorry. I’ll go now. I’ll leave you be. I’ve done enough to fuck up your life.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, and it's a surprise. Never expected those words. Harry pulls him in for an embrace, tight and warm and feeling like home, and it’s everything he’s missed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, it was my fault,” Niall says. Hugs back, lets himself have this one last thing, and presses his lips on Harry’s cheek. Tastes the salt from his tears. “I’m sorry. Have an amazing life, love.”

Harry cries harder, and squeezes him one last time, before Niall removes himself from the embrace reluctantly, eyes shut to avoid his own tears, chest impossibly tight, and he leaves. Tries not to look back, and he feels himself break as he walks away from the love of his life, again.

.

“Oi, why’re you back so late,” Louis yells as Niall locks the door behind him, sounds like he’s coming from the living room, the faint sounds of a FIFA game being played in the background. “I came back before you did, and I’m the one who owns a fucking club - Niall, what-”

He pauses his game immediately the moment he sees Niall, eyes red and skin pale with exhaustion. “What-”

Niall smiles weakly at him, and Louis hugs him without another word.

“Three years later, and I’m still in this state about him and what I did to him,” Niall says quietly.

“Oh, _Niall,_ ” Louis murmurs, holds him close. “Ni, enough now. You’ve tortured yourself enough. You’ve done what you can. It’s enough.”

“Really doesn’t feel it,” he says. Feels so bloody tired, like he can just melt off his bones. “Fuck. I told him I still loved him.”

Louis stills, “Niall.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to.”

“Niall.”

“Louis,” he says on an exhale, feels himself on the verge of another cry, “I couldn’t help it. I would never lie to him. I told him about the wedding, too.”

“ _Christ,_ Niall, have you honestly lost it?” Louis mutters, but he hugs him still. “Are you actively trying to make him hate you forever? You had a shot, you know-”

“To what?” Niall says, the slightest bitter edge in his voice, “You told me, Lou, to not fool myself into thinking that we could just pick up where we left off-”

“If you’d let me finish, you wanker,” Louis whisper-yells at him, squeezing him intentionally hard to get him to shut up. “Jesus. All I was going to say was that you could have not told him, so. At least this Harry won’t hate you for the rest of his life. Just a thought, even though you might not ever. You know.”

“I’d never lie to him, though,” Niall says, “I can’t. I never could and I won’t start now just because he’s forgotten me.”

Louis doesn’t speak for a moment. Then, “Even though he doesn’t remember it, I hope he knows.”

“Knows what?”

“How lucky he was. Is, actually. To have you love him so much.”

.

“I’ve really got to stop condoning all of this,” Liam sighs, pours some whiskey into Harry’s milky tea. “I thought you said you wanted him to leave you alone, Harry-”

“I know, Liam,” Harry mutters, thanking him as he’s handed his cup, and snuggling closer to Sophia. “Sorry, for waking you up, too-”

“It’s alright, love,” she says, though her voice is soft with the tinge of sleepiness, but she allows him to cuddle her, strokes his hair. “Poor baby.”

“Don’t encourage him, Soph,” Liam frowns slightly, settling down on her other side. “You went to talk to him and made him tell you everything you already knew. Great plan.”

“I didn’t know everything, Liam,” he replies, closing his eyes as he feels his heart jump to his throat. “I. I don’t know how to feel about any of it, anymore. Did you know that he’d been planning to propose for a year, before he actually asked me?”

“I - no, I didn’t,” Liam says, sounding a little surprised.

“He apologized, and I know it doesn’t really do anything to change what happened, but. I felt like I was finally allowed to move on, you know?” he says. “I feel like a weight’s been lifted. I had to cry, it felt like a relief.”

“I would cry too,” she murmurs into his hair. Defiantly ignores Liam’s hard glare at them. “So you want to move on?”

“I do,” Harry says, and he knows he’ll be judged for what he’s going to say next, but. “But, like. I’d always thought that moving on meant finding someone else. Being so bloody disgustingly happy with them and like. Start over, proper. But now, I feel like. Like. I don’t, I can’t really-”

“You want to move on,” she starts, voice like a balm, “but now you realize, it doesn’t necessarily mean that moving on is a separate thing from him. Is it?”

Harry audibly sighs, exhales with relief, and holds her closer. “Exactly.”

“Wh- _Harry,_ what the fuck,” Liam mutters. “You’re supposed to be moving on from this bloke, like the way you said you wanted for so bloody long.”

“I know, and I know what I said. I know the best thing for me is to move on from him,” Harry admits quietly. “But, Liam, as much as I didn’t want to anymore, he was always what I wanted. Until now. I think I always will.”

“Harry, you can’t-”

“He told me, everything,” Harry cuts in. “He had every opportunity to lie, to cover up what he did to me. He had every opportunity to hide the shit and be with me again, but he didn’t take it. He told me the truth.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Sophia murmurs, stops her fingers moving in his hair. “Oh, he loves you. He really does.”

“Harry,” Liam looks at him, eyes bright and wide and he knows where this is going, “three years is a long time. I don’t- you don’t know. Even if he still loves you, it’s not the same anymore. Especially since you’ve brought up this lie. It will never be the same.”

“He said it, though,” Harry says quietly, and Sophia holds him tighter. Takes it as instruction to quiet down, knowing it won’t get him anywhere tonight, but he continues. “He said he still loved me.”

“He still loves the Harry from before,” Liam tells him, and he’s trying to be patient, but the wariness in his voice is all too present. “Too much has changed, and he _left_ you, Harry. That still happened.”

Harry lets out a sob, doesn’t mean to, but his chest has been so wound up, feeling the stupid need to twist his insides and his heart constantly ever since Niall had found him again. It hurts, like three years of trying to gather himself again and start over had evaporated into the air, the pain fresh and it makes it so blaringly obvious that Niall is still his greatest love. And he doesn’t know what to do, anymore.

Sophia gathers him into an even tighter embrace, and it doesn’t even take a moment before Liam’s crowding him from his other side and holding him as well, and it just makes him cry harder.

.

Niall aged well, is Harry’s first thought when he sees him in the club Louis owns.

He’d gone with Liam and Sophia, on their insistence, but he finds himself just sitting in their booth, quietly observing the crowd and watching as Liam and Sophia dance with the rest of them. It’s a popular place, Harry can see some people in the VIP booths on the far side of the room, people he’s sure are pretty famous, he’s seen in some films, but he can’t quite place their names, and he’s glad Louis got out of that pub. Remembers him always having to make Niall and him leave once their hands started roaming below the belt and their lips got adventurous.

And he looks over to the bar, and there he is. Just standing, in the middle of a laugh and looking so handsome and. Harry knew that he would age the best out of all of them. Just had that kind of face, youthful but not like a child, just. Soft, but with the slightest edge of man that would mature over time and he knew that age would benefit him the best out of all of them. He’s a little more filled out, shoulders a bit broader, and dark hairs just visible beneath his polo, the few buttons on top open. He still dyes his hair, but it’s looking darker now, almost brown everywhere except for an inch or so at the tips, and Harry hopes he lets it be.

Niall looks over to him, suddenly, and his eyes and smile soften. Nods his head in greeting, and he doesn’t make to go to him.

Harry considers his options for a moment, knowing that it would be best if he left, and. He can’t blame the alcohol in his bloodstream for what he decides to do because there’s almost none, he’d been nursing the same drink since he’d come in an hour ago, and he walks over to where Niall’s standing.

“Are you a banana?” he says, before he loses his nerve. Wishes he had remembered to bring along his drink with him so he had something to hold.

Niall eyes him carefully, puts down the beer he was holding, and replies, “Why?”

“Because I find you a-peeling,” he finishes, tries to not say it so pathetically, and Niall smiles, beams at him, the beginnings of a laugh on his face.

“At least you’re consistent,” Niall tells him, chuckling, and Harry smiles in return.

“Apparently a few lost years in the memory system doesn’t make my jokes any less horrible,” he says lightly, and Niall smiles in return. It doesn’t look tight, or forced, and Harry takes it as a good step forward.

“You know, you might be asked to leave soon,” Niall tells him in a whisper, moving closer to say it in his ear. Harry fights to not shiver at the proximity. “You’re making everyone else here look bad.”

It makes Harry blush, feels himself turn red at the compliment, and he cannot go down this road again, not without care.

“You were important to me,” he says, a fact he can’t deny, says it as if this new Harry were coming to the conclusion.

Niall’s expression saddens, but he says, “I’d like to think so.”

“Okay,” Harry says, nodding a bit. “Then I don’t see why you can’t still be a part of my life.”

Niall looks shocked, and he stutters, “Harry. I don’t know if that’s a good idea-”

“I don’t know if I think that, too,” Harry says, frowning a bit. “I’m not too sure on how to navigate this, or what to do or anything. I don’t know how anything works, or if this is in any way will hurt either of us, but I want to know you. I feel strongly about you, and I want to take a risk. I want to be your friend.”

“Harry-”

“Please. Let me take this one risk,” he says, and his mind is screaming at him to shut up, to not be such an idiot, but he’s done with trying to forget. “And. I don’t think you’d be able to leave, anyway.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re stuck in my head,” he says, and it draws out  reluctant laugh from Niall. Sees him blush in the dim lighting of the bar, and Harry just realizes how much he misses him. Not even for his kisses, the way he can make him melt with his touch and the soft words in his ear. He misses Niall, his Niall that can make him laugh effortlessly, laughs at his jokes even though they’re dreadful, can make him happy so easily. He misses his best friend.

“I. I don’t know,” Niall says slowly, looking at him. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to try.”

“Then let’s try,” Harry says, with the gentlest smile.

This is how they start over.

.

They’re friends. A foreign concept to them both, because their first meeting ended with them sleeping together, but it’s not a bad kind of different.

They don’t see each other as often as they did before. When they hang out, it’s always with either Liam, or Louis, or the four of them and Sophia, sometimes, and it’s not awkward, per se. It’s really just. Different.

They talk, they sit next to each other sometimes, when it’s just them, they have tea in the morning maybe once a week, in that small cafe near the bookshop, and they begin anew.

Niall doesn’t bring up the past. Harry doesn’t ask about it.

It’s different, but it’s in no way bad.

Niall gets to know this version of Harry, who speaks lower and slower, uses pretentious, big words, has more tattoos than ever, hair that he says he won’t cut until it reaches his knees. This Harry, who smiles at him warmly, who still laughs when he says his lines and always has something for him in return, whose dimples always make him happy, no fail. This Harry who brings around a journal and still eats healthy and who’s still so quietly intelligent, always thoughtful and now, a bit guarded.

Harry gets to know this version of Niall, who still laughs loudly and is still so intelligent, so informed and though his general tone is much more careful, he still smiles like he’s the personification of sunshine, still compliments him freely and often, still makes him feel like a king. His jokes are still as bad, but still as endearing all the same. He wears glasses sometimes, and it catches Harry off guard the first time he brings them out, and it’s so unexpectedly attractive that he loses his words. He’s still observant, still so caring, still him, but older, the slightest bit more mature and Harry can see in the way he holds himself, the way he acts around him, that he’s seen the world, and that it’s not all as amazing as he thought it’d be.

They get close, like. Proper bestfriends, different from Liam and Harry, different from Louis and Niall. They’re just. They’re friends, and though the undercurrent of _something_ between them is glaringly obvious, the passing thought of Harry’s lips on his, or Niall’s hand held in his, they work fine enough. This friendship, it’s not undoable.

They’re both slightly different. And yet.

.

Things change when Liam’s stag do comes along a little over a month after they decide to try friendship. Harry’s best man, but his plans for a _‘classy, sophisticated museum-bar hop’_ had been vetoed out almost immediately by the entire wedding party, Louis most vehemently, taking full advantage of his rather new last minute appointment of additional groomsman quite seriously. Niall just laughs at him when Harry pouts, approaching him for comfort, offering him another line instead (“ _You’re like one of them chocolate bars. Sweet, but nutty_.”)

So, Louis had taken over, as he usually does. _“Pub crawl, like you deserve, Payno!_ ” It was an awful idea, because Liam either had only one kidney and couldn’t really drink, or he had two kidneys and absolutely was never going to kid around when it comes to alcohol, so he could get absolutely wasted. At this point, Harry’s not really sure, can’t remember which reality’s the right one, so dangerous.

But, in every reality. Niall is _really_ pretty. Like, gorgeous. And Harry is pretty aware of how stupid it is to be so flirty, but he doesn’t waste any moment to tell him so anyway, repeatedly.

“You’re _sooooo_ pretty,” he mumbles, smiling dopily, he’s sure, at Niall, who’s smiling at him too, and Harry kind of feels bad, because he knows he’s not exactly light, and he’s hanging off of Niall’s arms, clinging to him like a koala, but Niall just holds him around his waist, grip firm and unfaltering, never letting him fall. They’re in their fifth (sixth?) pub, and consequently, fifth (sixth?) pints, and Harry kind of feels like dying. Liam is halfway to absolutely smashed, but he looks like he’s positively enjoying it; Louis is still going strong, and Harry has a feeling that he’d probably eaten a full loaf of bread before starting all of this, bouncing around and yelling at the rest of the party, who all look probably closer to how Liam is faring. The only one who’s still looking quite okay is Niall, who’s definitely buzzed, not Louis-level sober, but he’s still standing on his feet, balanced, and aside from the red flush on his skin, you can’t quite tell he’s been drinking. Maybe just got a bloody sunburn, in the middle of the night, the way he looks.

Harry, pathetically, is absolutely off his face, and. He really does feel like dying. Like, his instead of blood, alcohol’s running through his veins.

“Come on, drink this before you end up vomming,” Niall tells him, mindful to keep his voice quiet because everything is ringing in Harry’s ears. “Here, Harry-”

He brings an open bottle of water to his lips, and Harry dutifully drinks it all. Anything for Niall, the prettiest person ever. Like an angel.

“You’re prettier than an angel,” he says, hiccupping at the end of it, and Niall makes him drink another bottle. “So pretty. Must have hurt when you fell from heaven.”

Niall snorts, but he sweeps back Harry’s hair away from his face. Doesn’t say another line, like Harry’s expecting, instead says, “Thank you, Haz. I think you’re pretty too. Always have.”

“Pathetic,” Louis yells, and he’s not drunk, but he is very loud. Much louder than he is normally. “The best man’s out of it, not even halfway through the crawl and you’re already off your face. _Pathetic_.”

“Shut it, Lou, I think you spiked his beers with vodka,” Niall yells back, helps Harry stand straight.

“Lou, you didn’t,” Liam says, eyes widening, but he’s on the verge of grinning, clearly finding it hilarious. Harry hates them both. Niall’s still an angel, frowning on his behalf.

“I did!” Louis yells right in his face, and they shake the pub with how hard they laugh. “Oi! Oi! On to the next stop!”

“No, you absolute headcase,” he scoffs, just as Harry somehow loses his footing and falls to the ground. He doesn’t know how it happened, but he does know, the ground is really gross and really hard. “ _Christ,_ don’t encourage them, Haz.”

“Not like I meant for that to happen,” he mutters, koala-ing Niall again tightly as he bends down to pick him up. Clings on to his shoulders and allows himself to be pulled up. Niall’s so strong, he thinks.

“Okay, think you should tap out, Harry,” Liam says, and ignores Harry’s incessant, whiny ‘ _nooooooooooooooo._ ’ “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

“Fuck you are, Payno,” Louis frowns at him, forcing him back to his seat and glaring at Harry for making him move in the first place. “You’re the man of the hour, you’re staying. Niall can bring him home.”

“Oh, my Irish angel,” Harry mumbles, grinning as he squishes Niall’s face together between his hands. “So pretty.”

“Okay, okay,” Niall laughs, pulling at the ends of Harry’s hair to get him to release his face. “Come on, let’s get you home-”

“I’d say ‘God bless you,’ but it looks like he already did,” Harry smiles at him, and the laugh and smile that results from it is enough to fuel him for the next fifty years, he thinks.

.

“If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple,” Harry hasn’t stopped spewing out ridiculous lines at Niall the entire cab ride, the perilous journey in the lift to his flat, and the stumbling through to his bed. Niall’s taking his boots off, but Harry won’t, can’t stop moving. Twists around on the bed, staring up at his ceiling as he wonders, “Why aren’t you saying anything back?”

“Someone has to be embarrassed for you, don’t have time to be flirty,” Niall snorts, pulling back the covers and tucking Harry in. “Okay, come on-”

“Just one, Ni,” he whines, pushes back the sheets Niall covered him with, too hot. “Just one, please-”

“Go to bed, you wanker.”

“Just one,” Harry pleads, sitting up and balling up the fabric of Niall’s shirt in his fists, draws him in closer. His eyes are so blue, it makes him so happy. “Please.”

“Okay, just one,” Niall says, smiling as he pries Harry’s hands away from him. “Okay, just one, then you go to sleep, okay?”

“Yayyyyyy,” Harry beams at him, taking hold of his hands, manages to kiss his cheek quickly.

He watches Niall turn the slightest pink, even in the dim room.

“What letter does ‘happiness’ start with?” he asks, his hands warm in Harry’s grasp.

“Hmmm, ‘H,’” Harry answers, staring into Niall’s eyes. Remembers them being the last thing he’d see before he’d go to sleep, almost everyday for four years. They look like home.

“I’d say you’re wrong,” Niall tells him quietly, and Harry hiccups, confused. “Because my ‘happiness’ starts with ‘U.’”

A beat. Then Harry lurches forward, kisses Niall on the mouth and he misses him so much. Loves him so much, even though he’s hurt.

Harry grabs on to his neck, pulls him in closer and urges him to kiss back. Eventually, Niall does, licks into his mouth and Harry sighs inwardly, lays back on the mattress, bringing Niall with him, and he’s so warm, familiar and everything he loves, kisses him for all it’s worth and doesn’t let go.

He’s still in love with him, he realizes. Realizes that when it comes to Niall, he doesn’t really stand a chance, and. It scares him, immensely. Scares him to no end because he knows in his heart that Niall would never hurt him on purpose, but he knows well that just because he might not mean to, the possibility of getting hurt anyway is all too real. He’s been left at the altar, been hurt by the person he adores most, and he’s scared. So scared, and yet he’s underneath him, melting under his touch and his care and Harry can’t breathe. Actually. He can’t _breathe_ and-

“Oh, god,” he wheezes against Niall’s lips, feels like is chest is being crushed and the oxygen is leaving his body all of a sudden and he _can’t breathe_. He tries to steal some air, breathing in deeply and he can’t seem to do so, can’t seem to get himself to stabilize.

“Haz,” Niall breathes out, removing himself from him in an instant. Moves quickly to rummage in his drawer, like he’s been here before, as if he knows where exactly everything is, but he hasn’t, actually. Just knows Harry, knows where he would keep his medication, know him enough to recognize that he’s having an asthma attack.

Harry can feel himself crying, a bit. It’s been some time, since he’s had an attack, and he hates the feeling of not being able to breathe. But Niall’s there not a moment later, helping him sit up and bringing his inhaler up to his mouth.

“Here,” he says softly, calm for the both of them, and Harry takes the puff, tries to get himself to calm down. Tries to stop crying, as Niall moves him a bit. Makes him lean against him, and he immediately curls into his chest, finding comfort and familiarity. Takes another puff of medicine, and he feels himself start breathing a little normally again.

“Are you feeling any better?” Niall asks him quietly, lips rustling against his temple. Wraps his arms around him.

“Yeah,” Harry answers meekly, closing his eyes as his heart slows down.

“Okay, okay,” he exhales, relieved and gentle.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, cannot help but feel bad for the trouble he caused, but more than that, for making Niall worry about him. Just as they were starting to get somewhere. Feels himself tearing up in embarrassment and disappointment. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Niall tells him softly, kissing the corner of his eye, and it makes his chest feel strangely tight, like. He’s being cared for, properly. “Just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Sorry,” he murmurs again, and he feels so tired, suddenly.

“Don’t be,” Niall tells him, the last thing he hears before he slumps in his arms, feeling the fight leave his body and sleep take over.

.

Harry wakes up alone, sees a glass of water on the nightstand with a pill, and his inhaler close by just in case. Sees that he’s still clothed, sans his coat, and the covers brought up to his chin. The clock reads just after three, so he hasn’t been asleep long, means that maybe. Maybe Niall’s still somewhere here.

He sits up, slowly, thankfully doesn’t feel like he’s going to throw up too much though his headache is grating, and takes the medicine Niall must have laid out for him. Gets out of his room and moves through the flat, and Niall _is_ still there, just about to put his coat on and head out the door.

“Don’t go,” he asks, pleads. His own voice sounds meek to him, but he stands his ground, stares at Niall as he lowers his coat, but makes no other move.

“I’ve let it go too far,” Niall tells him, shakes his head slightly. “Being just friends was already too much, we can’t do this.”

“Please,” Harry asks him, and he doesn’t care anymore. He’s sober enough to know that he wants him, that he is willing to risk it, that Niall is still who he wants, and. He doesn’t want him to go. “Please. Don’t leave.”

“Harry,” Niall says on an exhale, closing his eyes.

“I feel so different around you,” Harry dares to come closer, takes the coat away from his hands and set it aside, settles his hands on Niall’s waist. “I know you feel it too. I know it. I feel like we were meant to be much, much more than this. This isn’t it.”

“Harry,” he whispers again, but Harry can feel his resolve is dissolving.

“Niall,” he exhales, tilts his head and kisses him again, slower, less urgent, and this time, Niall reacts immediately. Licks against the seam of his mouth, sucks in his bottom lip and swallows the hums and soft moans erupting from their throats.

Harry doesn’t let their mouths separate as they find their way back to the bedroom. Collapses on top of the bed with Niall enveloping him, his body warm and familiar above him, and he helps Niall undress, pulls off his jumper, slips his hand through the waistband of his jeans and boxers and squeezes Niall’s arse beneath. Niall groans into his mouth, unbuttons Harry’s shirt and ridding him of his jeans and boxers, with difficulty. Adorns every inch of his skin with kisses, licking and biting over the tattoos on his chest, his stomach, his hips.

“Ni,” Harry moans, and he feels like floating. Almost sobs as Niall licks at his length, can’t move because his hips are held down by Niall’s hands. “Shit.”

“Don’t keep it in,” Niall tells him, gripping the base of his cock and squeezing, and Harry lets out a sob at the pleasure. “I want to hear you, okay?”

Harry doesn’t even have the chance to agree when his cock is taken into his mouth, and he moans, loud and long, as Niall sucks him off carefully, the way he knows he likes it. He pulls on Niall’s hair on instinct, earning him a moan that he feels around his cock, and a swallow, which makes him yell out Niall’s name and thrust his hips without control.

Niall takes it like a champ though. Blows him so well and Harry can barely stand it, the way his cock is enveloped in the tight warmth of Niall’s throat and mouth and he wants to be fucked, badly.

“Fuck me,” he mutters, begs, tapping at Niall’s shoulder and Niall, thankfully, doesn’t ignore his request. Reaches over and pulls out the lube from the nightstand, second drawer, and Harry can’t be bothered to be embarrassed or touched or whatever about Niall knowing where it was on the first try, and he moans out in surprise when a lubed up finger is tracing his rim only a few second later.

“Tell me if it hurts, okay?” Niall tells him, slowly pushing in the digit, and Harry can cry at how good it is. Feels like he actually will, eventually, but now, he focuses on how Niall fucks him slowly with the finger. In, out, then, there are two, and he rocks his back into it, feels his teeth actually ache from how turned on he is. There are three in him, then, faster and still careful but a bit rougher, and he jolts in pleasure when the tips of Niall’s fingers brush over his prostate.

“In me, in me, please,” he pulls Niall’s face down for a hard kiss, and nothing’s been so intimate. Niall nods wordlessly, rips open a condom and rolls it down himself, and Harry feels a stupid surge of disappointment. Remembers when he and Niall fucked without anything between them, because they weren’t with anyone except each other, anyway. A different level of trust between them, and. He wishes, wishes, that they didn’t have to use one now but.

Niall guides his cock into him, slowly and carefully, staring into his eyes all the while, and Harry feels very vulnerable. Swallows, and leans his neck, silently asking for a kiss which is given to him.

He’s in fully, and he doesn’t move, and Harry’s thankful. Needs the time to adjust to Niall again, after all these years, and he pulls him close, so they’re flush together with Niall inside him, and he breathes, tells himself to relax while Niall kisses his cheek.

Wordlessly, he crosses his legs around Niall’s waist, urging him to move, and Niall takes his hands, holds them above his head on the pillow and he fucks him, done teasing and he gives it to him, fast and hard and just this side of rough, and Harry is losing his mind.

Niall thrusts in and out, pistoning his hips into Harry’s body as his lips latch onto Harry’s. Kisses him gently, slowly, contrasting wonderfully to the way his cock pounds into Harry’s arse, tying them both to the moment.

He adjusts slightly, and on the next thrust in, Harry cries out again, Niall’s cock hitting the bundle of nerves just right, and it makes his back arch off the mattress, makes him break his hands out of the hold Niall’s had them in, and clutch onto his back instead.

“Too much?” Niall asks, voice wrecked and Harry wants to remember it forever, the way his voice sounds as he’s fucking into Harry.

“No, perfect, it’s perfect,” Harry chokes out, and he can’t get enough of it. When Niall fucks in again, he actually does let out a sob, cannot handle how good it makes him feel.

Niall goes in at that angle for a few minutes, drawing them both closer and closer to the edge and Harry feels it to the very ends of his fingers. Feels them falling into their old rhythms and it feels like a comfort and a warning, the way he’s starting to become all too familiar with the way Niall’s skin feels on his, the way he breathes deeply but quietly into his ear as he enters him, again and again, the way he makes Harry feel taken care of.

“Can I go on top?” Harry asks, a little shy and unsure, because he doesn’t know what Niall will say. Is more than fine with finishing like this, but he wants to ride him, milk this for all its worth, but Niall nods, kissing his neck as he guides them, rolls them over and moves to lean against the headboard, helping Harry settle on his lap, his cock still inside Harry all the while. It turns him on, all the more.

Harry gulps, a bit nervous, and he leans forward. Rolls his hips experimentally and moans at how unexpectedly perfect it feels, now. He grips at the headboard, and tilts his head forward to attach his mouth to Niall’s, and properly rides him, bounces on his lap and moving his hips, up and down, taking him in at his pace.

Niall moans into his mouth, squeezes at his love handles when Harry goes faster, fucking himself on his cock, and it takes nothing before he’s coming, groaning into the still air of the room as he releases into Harry’s arse, and Harry can’t stop moving. Feels it through the thin rubber of the condom as he bounces on his cock even faster, chasing his own orgasm, and Niall thrusts up though he’s visibly tired, fucks up into Harry and he’s barely got a hand around him when Harry yells and comes, shoving his cock into Niall’s grip and shooting white ribbons everywhere.

He feels like he’s lost his breath again, his chest feeling crushed in the best way, and he breathes in, out, deeply to get himself to calm down. Niall lifts him off of him, and next thing he knows, a bottle of water is in his hands, the opening right at his mouth and he takes it gratefully. Allows himself to calm down as Niall cleans them both up and he’s forgotten how good this actually feels. Being with Niall, being touched by him, unraveling beneath him. Being taken care of, softly, intimately.

“You alright?” he’s asked, the tone gentle.

“I’m good,” he replies, and he’s guided to lie back on the bed with careful hands, duvet pulled up to cover him. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Niall says softly, and he looks like he’s debating with himself, whether or not to join him, so Harry turns a bit to his side, takes hold of his hand, and pulls, urges him to lay with him.

So Niall spoons him, tucks him into his body and they’re so close beneath the sheets, and Harry finally feels like he can breathe properly. Like, not everything is completely okay, but. It feels like the chance of them falling into place, where everything’s supposed to be, the chance is not too far off.

.

It’s five in the morning, and he knows Harry’s not asleep yet, but Niall can’t hold it in anymore.

“I love you,” he murmurs, quiet and sure, and it takes a moment before Harry’s rustling. Rolls over so he can look Niall in the eye, and he can’t tell what he’s thinking. But he stands his ground, says it straight to his face, “I love you.”

Then Harry’s moving forward, kisses him softly, doesn’t say anything.

.

He brings them out for breakfast the next day, lends Niall some of his clothes and they go to this small cafe near his place. Orders them tea and scones and a muffin, and they sit outside, and.

It reminds him of that first morning together. The memory shocks him, hits him right when he doesn’t expect it, and it makes him choke on his English Breakfast. His eyes water at the thought, and he remembers everything, from that morning. Remembers how it felt like a beginning, a promise.

“Harry?” Niall says, and he realizes he’s sat still for maybe a minute. He lowers his cup, just as Niall’s asking him, “Are you okay? Is it too hot?”

He shakes his head, and he bites his lip in concentration. Thinks. And decides to risk it.

“Do you have any raisins?”

Niall’s eyes widen, and Harry can see his hand tighten around his mug, and he’s quiet for a long while, and he’s observing Harry. He knows, somehow, that Niall’s seeing if he suddenly remembers something, so he schools his face into something neutral, hopeful, innocent.

Niall must fall for it, because he says simply, with a crestfallen look on his face but still sounding happy enough, “No.”

“How about a date, then?” Harry says, and he gives him a small smile.

Niall smiles in return, and Harry feels like he’s fallen in love again.

***

The first time Harry says “I love you,” Niall thinks it’s by accident.

They’re in bed, Friday night in, and he’s got Harry underneath him, open and split open by his cock, and the moans he’s making are enough to make the people in the next room bang on the walls, telling them to keep it down. Niall ignores them, fucks Harry carefully and tries to drown out his noises by placing his mouth over his.

“Harry,” he groans as he clenches his arse around Niall, biting and leaving a mark on Niall’s neck.

“Come on, harder love,” he begs, so prettily, and Niall does as he’s told, shoves into him harder, jostles him up the bed with every push into his body. Makes the bed creak and the headboard slam against the walls, and it drowns out the banging from the other side.

“Fuck, fuck,” he mutters, shutting his eyes at the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded and filling Harry up, his cock squeezed and it’s perfect. It’s always perfect, and he’s so lucky.

“Niall,” Harry’s moaning, sounding like a prayer, and he pulls his face down, kisses him hard. “Niall. I’m close.”

“I’ll get you there,” he murmurs, fucks him harder and bites down on his shoulder. “God, Harry-”

“Ni,” he moans, cries out when Niall wraps his hand around his hard cock and pulls him off to the pace he's set. “Ni, fuck-”

He comes, shooting out white from the tip and getting the both of them filthy, and Niall gets on his knees, makes Harry arch his back as he chases his own climax, fucking in, in, in.

“Come on, Ni, almost there,” Harry mumbles, sounding tired, but he moans all the same, clenching around Niall as he's fucked. “Come in me-”

“Fuck, Harry,” Niall sobs, goes harder and rougher, squeezes Harry’s love handles hard as he pushes into his arse. “Perfect.”

Harry brings his face down to his, places a soft kiss on his lips, so different from the way he's being fucked, hard and fast, and tells him tenderly, “I love you.”

It shocks Niall, so much that his orgasm hits him out of nowhere. Thrusts into Harry one last time with a shout of his name, and he's held all the while.

He falls, and Harry catches him readily, soothes him with soft words in his ear, kisses all over his face, his hair swept back with gentle fingers.

“Not going to say anything?” Harry teases him quietly, brushes his lips over Niall’s eyelid.

“Did you, um,” he starts, feeling choked and he's not quite sure what to do. Hides his face in Harry's neck, asks, “Did you mean that? It's okay if you didn't mean to, um, say it. I don't feel any different about you.”

“And what makes you think I don't?”

“I,” Niall says, and he feels foolish. Still can't find his words. “I don't. Um. I'm sorry-”

“I love you,” Harry repeats himself, and Niall has to close his eyes. Feels so overwhelmed. “I love you.” He moves, and they're on their sides, and he pulls Niall near. Nuzzles his nose, says it again. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he repeats, knowing his voice is too soft and he thinks it might have cracked, a bit, but. “I love you, so much.”

“Thank you for existing,” Harry says to him, and he sounds so sincere and Niall loses his breath. Any other time, he'd laugh, but now.

“I love you,” he chooses to say, feels like anything else wouldn't be appropriate. Won't be able to convey how happy he is.

***

Harry picks Niall up from work at the studio, and he's pretty sure that's Thom Yorke Niall's hugging goodbye, and they set off to their date. Offers his hand for him to hold, and Niall takes it quietly, and it feels so much like before, but still completely different. It's quiet between them, but not uncomfortable, and they stay close together as they walk to their destination.

Harry can hear Niall gasp audibly beside him once they get to the bookshop. It’s late, and it’s just about to close, but once they come in together, and Helen sees them, her face lights up exponentially, her eyes shinier as she takes them in, and tells them to stay for as long as they want, and she hides out in the back, leaving them.

“Why here?” Niall asks him. Their fingers are still twined.

“I like it here,” Harry offers him. “And you said that you used to go here. Would be a shame to stop coming here, you must have had good memories in this place.”

“I did,” Niall replies, allows Harry to bring them over to the ‘English Classics’ section. “Some of my favorite memories.”

“Were they with me?” Harry asks him, straightforward. Wants to know what he’d say.

Niall doesn’t speak immediately, instead wanders away slowly. Harry stares after him, watches him approach the ‘First Editions’ case, open the glass door and pick up a thin book off the display carefully. Watches him turn back around to look at Harry intently, and Harry feels his heart jump to his throat.

Niall’s got the copy of the Katherine Woods English translation of ‘The Little Prince’ in his hands, the same one he had read when they had come here that first time, hiding out from the blizzard.

“Yes,” Niall tells him tenderly, and he sounds so quietly happy. Harry knows how he feels.

“And what would we do here?” he asks, tries to sound innocent and curious, but really, his heart is jumping to his throat at the memory of reading quietly with Niall, every moment soft and warm and beautiful.

“You would read,” Niall answers him simply. “And I would hold you.”

“Would I read out loud? Or would I just sit there and read, or,” he asks, rambles, because he can’t stay quiet or he’ll lose his mind.

Niall comes closer, holds his hand and brings it up to his lips, brushes his lips over his knuckles, and the action is so intimate, Harry really does lose his words. Doesn’t know what to say. “It didn’t matter. We were here together. That’s all that mattered to me.”

“Will you read to me, then?” Harry asks him.

“I don’t know, ‘m not much of a reader,” Niall replies nervously, but Harry kisses him once on his lips.

“Please?” he asks, and Niall nods then, kisses back before leading them over to the ladder up to the loft. He lets Harry go up first, and he’s thankful for it, so Niall doesn’t have to see the way his face will change once he realizes that this is the first time in three years he won’t be up here alone, and what’s more, it’s with Niall.

He settles quickly to his usual corner, just next to the window and partly hidden by the shelf of Vogues from the first five decades of the 20th century, and by then, Niall’s made his way up. Watches him pause as he takes in Harry, sat on the floor in their usual spot, and Harry feels his heart race in his chest. It doesn’t stop as Niall walks over to where he is, mindful of the low ceiling, and gets down to the ground, sits next to him, close enough that their thighs touch, and he slowly, carefully opens the book. Glances at Harry once, before taking out his glasses from his breast pocket and putting them on. Harry watches him open his mouth to begin, but. It doesn’t feel quite right.

“Wait,” he says, and Niall looks at him, confused. Harry moves, so that he’s got Niall between his legs, one behind his back, the other over his thighs. Brings himself closer and rests his chin on his shoulder, nuzzles his neck and winds his arms around his waist. Wants him as close as possible.

Niall pauses, looks at him, and it’s all Harry can do to kiss the hinge of his jaw, try to get him to start. Then, he kisses Harry’s temple, and reads, “‘Once, when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal…”

Harry listens to him speak, barely taking in the words and really just listening to Niall talk. The words are soft when he says them, gentle and full of care, like he knows how much it means to Harry to hear him say it. And he’d be right.

Harry presses a kiss to his cheek, lets his lips linger there, as Niall finishes the first chapter. Dares to let his hand wander cheekily to Niall’s crotch, palming at his dick, and Niall shoves him off, laughing loudly, and he grins. Nips at his nape as he tries to continue reading, and it feels so utterly normal.

The stay until Niall reads about the rose. “ _Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose._ ” Harry’s lips are slightly sore from how many times he’s pressed his lips onto Niall’s skin, and Niall’s voice is slightly hoarse from the reading. They’ve not moved much from their initial position, still close, very close to each other.

Harry kisses him, full on the mouth, as they leave the shop. Pulls him close, makes sure to remember this moment.

Treasured, cherished, maybe painful in the future, but.

Another beginning is rare to come by. He counts himself very lucky.

.

It’s a fifth official date, though there have been many non-official dates in between the real ones, but Harry doesn’t really dare to count it. Just feels like it’s nice to remember, go over the day in his head and count on the moments he and Niall have.

They’re in the train, on the way over to Niall’s flat, bags of ingredients in their arms.

“Don’t understand why they need to be bloody _organic_ -”

“You can taste it in the eggs if they aren’t, Niall,” Harry frowns at him, standing closer to him once a new surge of people come in the fill the tube. “And the cows know when you aren’t treating them right, comes out in the taste of the meat-”

“ _You’re_ not even eating the steak, Haz,” Niall laughs at him, hoisting the bags up in his arms, “you don’t eat red meat, why should you care.”

“I care for animals in general, Niall,” Harry tells him matter-of-factly. “Want to know if they’ve been treated right when I eat them. And there’s nothing wrong with free-range chicken-”

“ANYWAY,” Niall’s laughing, cutting him off and Harry feels very ignored when Niall laughs at his frown. “How was work, love?”

“Horrible,” Harry launches right into it, frowning all the more. “Like, Pez and Luke keep trying to submit articles about Justin Trudeau and nothing else, like. What am I going to do with that?”

Niall pauses, visibly confused and disbelieving. “The Canadian Prime Minister?”

“I mean, yeah, he’s a Disney prince personified,” Harry rambles, nodding as he thinks about it, “but, they weren’t even really informative. Nothing about the changes he’s made or the way he changed history by being elected that first time and the choices with his cabinet in 2015 or his re-election or even anything about his father being a former Prime Minister as well. It was mostly about his boxing videos and the way he looks really good in other countries’ national costumes.”

Niall’s laughing by ‘boxing videos,’ catching the attention of other passengers, but he obviously doesn’t care much. Just keeps on laughing as Harry finishes, and poking at his dimples, just slightly visible in his frown.

“He _is_ fit, for a fifty year old-”

“They even gave me links to the videos,” Harry pouts, and Niall just laughs again, louder. “Pez said his hair used to be curly like mine, like, _how_ is that even related.”

“Bet someone mentioned his kids’ names,” Niall teases.

“Xavier James, Hadrien, Ella-Grace Margaret,” Harry mutters darkly. “Luke even included a picture of each.”

“Eventful, though,” Niall tells him, grinning.And Harry can tell he’s not being told something.

“What’s with you?” he asks him, cocks an eyebrow at him curiously.

“Got news I’d be working on a new record today,” Niall tells him quietly, but he doesn’t say more. Smiles instead, secretive.

“Wanker,” Harry mutters, brings his arm around to snake around Niall’s waist. Pulls him in as he asks, “Who’s it with?”

“Why don’t you guess?”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he goes along with it, “Radiohead?”

“No, but that would have been amazing.”

“Badly Drawn Boy.”

“Oh, they’re doing another album?” Niall asks him.

“I don’t know,” Harry shrugs, “Vampire Weekend?”

“Just finished that one,” Niall replies easily, and Harry won’t admit he’s impressed.

Instead, tries, “Adele?”

He knows he’s got it right when Niall can’t control his schooled expression, smile breaking through and the brightness in his eyes overwhelming.

“Adele? Oh my god, Niall,” he says, beams at him and leans forward to press a light kiss on his lips. “Niall, that’s incredible-”

“I was handpicked, Haz,” he says, can’t hold in his excitement. Smiles and wraps his own arm around Harry. He can feel the way his fingers scratch at his back. “Like. She called in, and I spoke to her, I mean, it was only for like a minute, but she said she’d heard my work on ‘10,000 Saints,’ said she thought it was so ‘unexpectedly ethereal.’ She called my work _ethereal_ , Haz.”

“Fitting, for an Irish angel,” he says.

“She’s coming to meet with me in a few weeks, once her tour ends,” he tells him, “I mean, I can’t believe it. Like, everyone I’ve worked with is so talented, but Adele-”

‘So proud of you, love,” Harry says, and he really is, feels his heart burst with it.

“I’m buzzing, like,” Niall’s visibly vibrating, beaming at him and he looks so happy next to him, bouncing and Harry adores him.

“I love you,” Harry tells him, easily, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. He knows it’s not, but he cannot deny what he’s always known.

Niall snaps his head to look at him, eyes wide and shocked and jaw dropped, not believing.

“What-”

“I love you,” Harry tells him again, just as simply. Three years of radio silence won't change that, he guesses. Every version of him will always love Niall, and he's come to understand that it wouldn't ever be a bad thing.

Harry watches him swallow, feeling the urge to suck on his neck. Feels like his chest is too tight, but it’s not unpleasant in any sense.

Niall doesn’t reply verbally to him. Turns to the lady next to him, says, “Excuse me, love, do you mind holding this for a moment, I need to kiss this idiot properly.”

“Okay,” she coos, takes the bag of food from him and Niall’s on him immediately, cups his face in his hands and Harry’s laughing into the kiss, lips in a smile as Niall snogs him proper.

He’s pretty sure they get applause, but it’s all just white noise. “I love you,” he murmurs against Niall’s mouth, and Niall says it back to him readily, just kisses him again.

.

They don’t end up cooking right away, when they get back to his flat.

He almost-slams the bag on the counter, and Harry’s squawking about how the meat’s going to get bruised, or something, but Niall can’t listen to his ridiculousness. Loves him immensely, then and now, as some things never change, but he’s a massive idiot.

Takes the bag in Harry’s arms, sets it on the counter just as hard, and before Harry’s got time to protest, he pushes him to the counter, mindful of his back, and he traps Harry in, hands grasping at the granite on either side of him.

“Shut up,” he mutters, surges to kiss him fiercely, and Harry kisses back hard and quick. “Just, shut it, with your bruised meat and fuck-”

“Can think of other things that I’d like to see bruised,” Harry says, grinning like he thinks he’s all sly,and Niall just pinches his arse, making him yelp. “Okay, sorry-”

“Ridiculous,” Niall mutters. Attaches his lips to his pulse point as he unbuttons Harry’s shirt, hands skimming over exposed skin and taking in all his warmth. “Fucking ridiculous, ‘m in love with an idiot.”

“I’m in love with Adele’s next sound engineer,” Harry says, pushing their hips together and grinding, making Niall groan out in surprise. “‘Unexpectedly ethereal;’, she said, yeah?”

“Like a bloody angel,” he says, pulling his own shirt over his head and diving back in to suck Harry’s bottom lip into his mouth, doesn’t stop until he can feel Harry hum against him. “Bed.”

“Could do it here-”

“Fuck no, I cook here,” Niall growls at him, slaps his arse lightly to get him moving, meant to be playful, but Harry yelps the slightest bit, jerks against his body, and. “Fuck, what the fuck-”  
“Next time,” Harry’s eyes are very dark, very quickly. “But now-”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Niall’s murmuring, unbuttoning his jeans as he moves towards the bedroom. Shoves off his jeans and his boxers in one go, leaving them on the floor by his bed, and he fully doesn’t expect it when his body is pushed to the mattress suddenly, and he’s guided to his hands and knees.

“What-”

“This okay?” Harry’s whispering into his ear, and Niall can feel the hard line of his cock rub along his arse, along his crack, and he moans, can’t really question how he got undressed so quickly or how he somehow soundlessly got in the room, not when he starts sucking a mark on Niall’s nape.

“ _Fuck_ , more than,” he replies, hearing how his own voice gets slightly high and very breathy. “Come on, stuff’s in the nightstand.”

Harry doesn’t say anything, just leans over and takes out everything they need. Niall hears the bottle of lube snap open, and anticipates the first press of Harry’s finger on his hole.

Really doesn’t quite expect the press of his tongue first, though.

“ _Holy christ_ ,” he swears, loud and desperate, and Harry really goes for it. Opens him up with his tongue, urging him with his hand on his hip-

“Come on, Ni, push back,” he says, sounding wrecked, and Niall remembers the first time he ate Harry out. Had to make him bite the pillow because he’d already gotten a noise complaint, but it hadn’t done much to stop Harry from throwing his head back when Niall fucked him with his tongue and fingers, crying out as he spilled on to the sheets.

He does as he’s told, pushing his hips back and letting Harry deeper into his arse, and Harry licks him out proper, stiffens his tongue and fucks him with it, and Niall thinks he’s about a second away from coming, once Harry slides in a finger next to his tongue.

Soon, too soon, Harry’s stopped rimming him, instead, is fucking him with three long fingers, and Niall’s rocking along with it. Cannot get enough, cannot stop moving and he’s so gone.

“Gonna fuck you good,” Harry’s muttering into his ear, hears the packet of the condom rip, and he knows Harry’s slicking himself up, if the small, almost pained noises are anything to go by. Can’t imagine how hard he must be, from eating him out and the fingering.

“Then do it well, Harry,” he challenges, and Harry does. Shocks him by fucking into him all at once, and Niall shouts at it, so unexpectedly good and overstimulating, amazing.

Harry doesn’t play around, pulls out, then shoves back in, establishing a hard pace immediately, and Niall honestly feels like he’s melting off his skin.

“Harry,” he moans, his hips gripped hard as he’s pulled back onto Harry’s cock, whimpers as he feels it brush over his prostate. “Harry-”

“Yeah, Ni, so good,” he mutters, goes harder and rougher, fucking forward and the slap their skin makes is loud in the room. “Fuck, how is it you’re so perfect, fuck-”

He clenches his arse around Harry, earning him a moan and an ass cheek squeeze, and he groans at Harry’s hands grabbing at his arse, never letting go as he hammers into Niall’s willing body.

“Oh, god,” he says, drops down to his elbows, and Harry holds his bum up in the air as he continues to fuck into him, drilling his cock into his arsehole. Such a heady amazing feeling. “Harry, close-”

“Turn around,” he says, and he helps Niall along to lie on his back, and it hardly takes a moment before he’s shoving back into him, barely missing a beat, and he goes even faster, his cock making lewd noises as it pumps in and out of Niall’s body. Niall can tell he’s close as well, from the way his thrusts get erratic and uneven, faster and faster and needing to release.

“Fuck,” Harry swears and it’s such a rarity to hear him do so, and Niall has to moan at it, clenches around him, unintentionally. “Fuck, Niall, I love you. so much.”

“ _Fuck_ , I love you,” Niall replies, but he’s so close, and Harry’s got his hard cock in his hands suddenly, barely taking a few thrusts before he’s groaning, squeezing and throbbing around Harry and he’s coming, shooting white all over their fronts.

“Oh, fuck, do you-”

“Come in me,” Niall tells him, and Harry follows. Manages a few thrusts before coming with a whine, and Niall can feel him throb inside him.

He pulls out, slowly, and, as if he hadn’t had enough, Harry cleans him up with his tongue, and Niall jolts, but doesn’t push him away. Closes his eyes at the overstimulation, at Harry’s tongue sliding over his skin and licking him clean. It’s hot, very hot, but Niall is still oversensitive and the tips of his fingers are tingling.

“Jesus,” Niall’s muttering, right before Harry kisses him, feeds him a bit of his come, and it’s so filthy and Niall doesn’t want to admit that he loves it, so he just sucks on Harry’s tongue, taking everything that’s offered him.

“The chicken must have gone bad, by now,” Harry mutters, settling next to him and snuggling up to his chest, as if he were the one who’d been fucked out of his mind.

“No, it’s fine,” Niall says, not really sure of what he’s saying, but he pulls Harry in close anyway. Every inch of his skin feels like it’s on fire, in the best way. “The. The chicken? The chicken, it’s fine.”

“Love you,” Harry’s saying again, as if to comfort him, and Niall appreciates it so. Knows, as well, that he means it, with every fiber of his being. In the grander story that was them, even though they're both different now, even though some things have been lost, Niall still could not be happier, could not be more thankful that they've found each other again.

“I love you, still,” he offers in reply. Means it in the same way, and more.

.

“Louis, I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me where we’re going-”

“Not any fun that way, Harold,” Louis tuts at him, dragging him by the arm rather haphazardly. Doesn’t really take into consideration that Harry can’t see, because he’s been blindfolded. “Just trust me! This is going to be fun-”

Harry runs into another pole, barely avoiding hitting his face, and he groans, more from being annoyed rather than being hurt.

“Come on, almost there,” Louis is yelling, and he’s barely got any warning before he’s shoved forward, almost falling on his face and just barely able to stand when Louis grabs the back of his shirt to balance him carelessly. “Okay, take off the blindfold!”

“Bloody finally,” Harry mutters, not having been able to see for the thirty minutes as they navigated the streets has given him bruises aplenty, and he’s probably hurt a lot of people as well, with the way he’d been flinging his arms and legs around in blindness. “Didn’t understand why that was necessary.”

“Oh shut up,” Louis helps him remove the blindfold, and Harry blinks a bit, adjusting to the dim lighting of the night, and when he looks to see where he is, his heart drops to his stomach, very quickly.

“What-”

“I used to work here, you know,” Louis tells him, grin on his face, and Harry feels like he’s about to have another attack. “Tips were awful, regulars were rowdy and always spilled their drinks, used to know two mates, you know? Wouldn’t stop snogging and shit, and like, the regulars wouldn’t help, would just urge them on and shit. I’d always have to kick them out.”

Harry swallows, tries to look nonchalant but inside, he’s falling apart, listening to him reminisce about his days in this pub. Feels like he already knows what’s about to happen once he goes in.

“Well, no use waiting out here,” Louis shrugs, grinning, and he’s pushing Harry forward, inside, and once he’s in there, Harry chokes up immediately.

Most of the same staff is there, working the tables and the bar, and not much has changed since he’s been here last. Feels like just another end of the day, waiting for Niall to come and Liam might just drop by, and the overwhelming sense of nostalgia is making him breathless, his chest much too tight. And he sees that it’s filled with people he knows, people from uni that knew them, friends he hasn’t seen in a long time, all smiling at him once he’s inside. All trying to act casual as well, but Harry knows, can tell, that they’re here because they were told to be. Even bloody Zayn is there, and he's been so careful, worked so hard to pretend he'd forgotten him as well.

Sees Liam and Sophia, standing by the bar, and they look the slightest bit worried, but still smiling. It’s very telling, for what’s about to happen next.

This is how it falls apart.

“Okay, you sit here,” Louis moves him over to the bar, and Harry knows this is the same seat as that first time, can feel himself panicking. “I’ll just go off to the loo-”

He’s off, and Harry’s left alone, but not for very long.

“Harry,” Niall’s coming up to him, looking so handsome and he’s got his glasses on, and Harry is so hopelessly in love with him. Feels his guilt triple, quadruple, multiply exponentially as he takes in his expression, happy and unknowing, and Harry knows what he’s about to do. “Hi, love.”

“Niall,” he breathes out, is barely able to respond to the kiss he's given in greeting before Niall's pulling away, smiling at him.

“I love you,” he tells him, simply, as if it was just a passing thought, a casual fact of the day but still said so carefully, and Harry honestly feels like he's stopped breathing.

“I love you,” he replies, because he can't not tell him, and Niall's giving him this small, secretive smile, meant just for him.

“It's not important,” Niall then says, backs away from him slightly, “but. I've had a thought. And you have to know, I am more than happy with us, now. This new beginning, between us, it's more than anything I could have hoped for. But, I thought, that maybe, I could tell you a bit about us. About how we met, how we started our story. How I fell in love with you, that first time.”

Harry cannot control the way his eyes water, how his heart won't stop hammering in his chest, feels like he's going to explode.

“I saw you, from over there,” Niall tells him, points over to one of the booths, where Niall's friends raise their bottles at them in greeting. Harry knows them all. Willie, Eoghan, Laura, Bressie. Even knows that none of them were even there, the first time he and Niall meet. He remembers everything. “I saw you, sat alone here in this spot, and you were so beautiful, dropped my drink, and Louis had to mop it up.”

Harry can't speak, just stares at him as he moves, flits around him.

“I walked up to you, and I stood here,” he moves over to Harry's left, “and I said, ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’”

Harry glances over to where Liam and Sophia are, sees them both look at him in concern, slightly alarmed.

“And you didn't say anything, just blushed and looked down at your drink, margarita, was it? Two for one deal, that night,” he continues, still smiling. “Then I moved over here,” he says, going over to Harry’s right side, “and I asked you, ‘What about at second sight?’”

He’s still smiling softly, and Harry feels like he’s on the verge of tears, his eyes stinging with the promise of them. He looks so innocent, so in love and he just wants to make Harry happy and make everything right and he’s been lying to Niall.

“Then you told me, ‘don’t think you’re talking to the right person,’ and I told you that I was,” Niall tells him. “Then I introduced myself, ‘Niall Horan, Sound Engineering, second year.’ And you,” he nods at Harry, gesturing for him to introduce himself as well.

“Harry Styles, Creative Writing, freshman,” he says, tries to keep his voice as stable as he can, feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Yes, exactly like that,” Niall tells him, “and then you-”

“I called you a ‘cute-cumber,’” Harry says, unable to lie any longer. Can’t do this anymore to Niall, who’s just been trying so hard to make it right and treat him well and make him happy. He can’t keep lying, won’t prolong this cruelty. He loves him too much. “I called you a cute-cumber, and I thought it was stupid, but you laughed, and told me I owed you a drink. Said you dropped yours when you saw me, and it wasn’t a line. You really did drop it, and Louis was telling you to get laid,” he says, all in one go, never looking away from Niall’s gaze.

Niall stares at him, pleased expression turning confused, “I, um, I don’t-”

“Then we talked for hours,” he goes on, chest still tight. “We talked about how much you missed your mum’s cooking, those Irish sausages you loved so much, how excited you were to become an uncle. How much I missed my sister, my mum, how much I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, and you offered to teach me, and so much more. Carly Rae Jepsen played, ‘Let’s Get Lost,’ and I called myself a single, as a joke, and you called me the best on the entire album. Then I kissed you.”

Niall’s confused expression turns pleased, again. Excited, says, “Harry, did you, did you remember? Did everything come back?”

“Niall, I never forgot,” he tells him, and he feels awful. Begins to cry, tells him between breaths, “Niall, I never forgot. There was never any accident, there was never any memory loss. I remember everything, I always have. I never forgot about you, I never did.”

He feels his heart break in his chest as he watches Niall’s face fall slowly, sobs as Niall steps back, and he grabs on to his arm. “Niall-”

He shakes his head, and Harry can feel everyone’s eyes on them, but he tries to pull Niall back in, tries to explain.

“Niall, I promise, I never meant to hurt you,” he tells him as the tears fall on his face. “I just. It was so hard, moving on from you in the first place, and then you show up in the shop and you were still so beautiful, and I couldn’t deal with it, so I pretended I didn’t know who you were.”

Niall shakes his head still, looks down and pretends to fix his glasses on his face, but Harry can feel his hand tremble, sees him shiver.

“I just wanted you to leave me alone, but it just made everything so complicated,” Harry tells him. “I made Liam tell you about my ‘accident,’ and I thought you would leave it then, but. I never expected to find myself still in love with you. I never thought that I would still want you so near.”

Niall still doesn’t speak, but he’s looking at Harry now, eyes looking so betrayed, close to tears himself. Harry loves him so, feels so, so sorry, regrets everything he’d done.

“I never meant to take the lie so far, I promise,” Harry tells him, feels like he’s losing his breath. “I was just scared, but. Niall, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He cries, sobs, and he presses his hands against his heart, tries to breathe, feels like he’s about to get another attack, and he shuts his eyes, tries to get a hold of himself.

Firm hands are taking his, places what he recognizes as his inhaler in his palms, and a soft kiss is pressed to his temple. Feels like his heart’s going to beat right out of his chest when he’s let go, Niall leaving him.

“Nialler,” he hears Louis mutter, but he’s brushed off, and Niall goes out the door, and everything’s too silent then.

He cries still, breath hitched, and he leans on the counter as he tries to stave off an attack, and Liam and Sophia walk over to him immediately, and he’s taking a puff, before just crying again, gathered in their arms.

He hates himself, a little. Doesn’t know what to do, to make everything better.

.

“Fucking amnesia,” Louis mutters, and Niall doesn’t really listen. Doesn’t touch his Tonight Dough-flavored ice cream in front of him, doesn’t even look at the beer Louis had brought out for him either. “How could grown-ass men like us fall for that shit-”

“Wouldn’t really call us grown-ass, Louis,” Zayn replies, sounding quite bored.

“Shut it, Malik,” Louis says, eyeing him dangerously. “What are you even doing here in the first place.”

“Lou, you dragged him here,” Niall says tiredly.

“Said there was strength in numbers,” Zayn mumbles, taking a pull from is bottle.

“Didn’t actually think you’d follow,” he glares at him, and Niall is already over it.

“I didn’t think that would hurt this much,” Niall says, and they quiet down immediately. He laughs, no humour in it, and he presses the heel of his palm against his eye. It comes away wet. “I didn’t think, like, that could happen. Didn’t even see it coming. Like, I’d expected a punch, a slap, a kick to the arse. Anger. Hate. Not, not this.”

Zayn and Louis stare at him as he leans back in his seat. Tears are rolling freely down his cheeks, but he makes no sound. “Like, I know, I know I’ve got no right to be mad, because I’m the one who left him in the first place. I was the first one to fuck up, I see where this came from. I get it. But, I just. I never thought we’d reach this point, you know? I’d never lie to him. I thought he’d never lie to me.”

“Niall,” Louis says, sits next to him. Rubs his shoulder, and Zayn’s coming forward from where he’s been sat on the other side of the room, moves away the bowl of ice cream and the full bottle of beer. Sits in front of them, on the coffee table. “Don’t think leaving him would warrant this. You still loved him for the last seven years. Aside from running out on him, you’d never been awful to him. Okay, that sounded bad-”

“It was bad, you’re not helping,” Niall smacks the back of his head, and he wipes at his tears, denying they ever happened.

“Don't think it's good for you to be so bottled up about everything, mate,” Zayn tells him quietly, offers him the handkerchief from his pocket. Niall takes it, a little reluctant, and Zayn goes in to say, “it's a good medicine, yeah? Letting it out, crying, yelling. Anything you can do to get it out of your system, so you can focus on what you really need to think about.”

“And what exactly would that be?” Louis asks him, not sounding as if he's challenging him, for once.

“Why you decided to walk up to Harry while he was looking over the cheeses, in the first place,” Zayn says simply. “Why you decided to try again.”

.

“Harry,” Olly peeks his head through the door, and Harry looks up from where he's doing nothing on his desk, under the pretense of reading over articles to edit, but. He's absorbed nothing in the last hour he's been here. “Do you need anything? Before I go out for lunch?”

“No, Olly, it's alright,” Harry sighs. “Have a good break.”

“Alright,” Olly says, smiling sheepishly. “And you've got a visitor? I can send him away, if you want? You don't look too well.”

“No, it's okay, I'll see him,” Harry says. “Who is it?”

“Says his name is ‘Tommo-’”

“Ah, christ,” he mutters, but it's too late now. “Alright send him in.”

Olly nods, leaves, then a moment later, Louis comes in, and Harry's prepared for a hostile glare, murderous eyes, every venomous expression he can think of. He's seen Louis at his most vicious, and he is more than ready to receive those looks. He's not prepared, however, for the sad, disappointed stare he's given.

“Hi, Lou,” he greets, goes to stand, but Louis shakes his head and sits down in the plush chair in front of his desk.

“I'll get right to it,” Louis says right away, crossing his arms. “Why'd you do that to him?”

“Louis,” he says, closes his computer in front of him. “It was just something I said because I panicked, and I honestly thought he'd leave me alone after, but. It was my own fault. I lied, and I went after him. I know it's my fault, I’m sorry.”

“That was a real shitty thing you did, Harry,” Louis tells him, and he can feel his cheeks color in shame. “He really, really loves you, and he knows he was in the wrong the first time, but he really did everything he could to make it up to you. He tried so hard, you know. Left you alone because he thought this what you wanted, but you're the one who pushed for this, Harry. He tried, really tried, for you. Even when he thought you didn't remember any of it.”

“I know,” Harry says. “I'm sorry. I really am. I love him. You might doubt that, but I really love him.”

“I don't. Doubt that, I mean,” Louis tells him. “I know you do. But I don't think you've got any idea how much you've devastated him.”

“I know,” he says, twists his hands around. Feels the stupid urge to cry again.

“Then please, for both your sakes,” Louis tells him, looking serious, “if you choose to fix this, don't abuse his love for you. He's not an idiot, so don't treat him like one.”

Harry nods, fully understanding, but he can't find it in himself to speak. Knows if he does, he’ll just be apologizing and professing his love for a person who's not there.

.

Niall thought he'd be shifting his pants, right before he meets Adele, and he kind of is, but. The stupid, lingering pain from the past week distracts him from being really excited about the moment, and he almost doesn't notice when she's coming in. She's quite beautiful, winged eyeliner perfectly applied, and her presence is quite larger than life, so Niall loses his words if only momentarily.

“Niall?” she asks, and her voice is unexpectedly sweet. Still deep, low and gorgeous, but so pleasant, puts him right at ease.

“Yes,” he answers. Offering her a smile, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I'm Niall Horan. Lovely to meet you, Miss Adkins.”

“Oh, you're quite fit,” she says, smiles at him and takes his proffered hand in a firm grip. “They didn't tell me you'd be fit.”

“Oh, well,” he laughs, blushing.

“Oh, don't worry, not about to do anything to you, and none of this ‘Miss Adkins.’ Adele, alright?”

“Yes, sorry,” he blushes again, and she smiles at him, endeared. Then they're being whisked off to the studio, off to work.

There's a team of producers, team of managers, musicians and it's quite a number. Niall feels a bit lost in it all, feels like he doesn't quite fit in this equation, like. A bit of an out of body experience for him, doesn’t know what to do as they settle into one of the bigger studios. Massive, almost like a conference hall of sorts, with a booth for recording in the front, and Niall feels much smaller than he is. All the while, wishes he could tell Harry about it all, because he’d never made Niall feel small. Makes him feel like he’s at the top of the world.

He’s only slightly drifting off when they begin to discuss her vision for the record. Maturity, growth, joy, happiness. Second chances, the future, contentment. All strung together with gorgeous piano melodies and sweeping strings, carried on that otherworldly voice. It’s simple enough, but Niall knows better. The simplest ones are the most difficult to make beautiful sometimes. Hardest to perfect, and he knows he’s got his work cut out for him.

It sort of proves that he’s not really listening, when he’s being prodded, asked, “Niall, what do you think?”

“What?” he mumbles, not quite on purpose, and he glances around at Cher, who’d poked him and is staring at him with wide eyes that look as if they’re on the verge of laughing. “I’m sorry, didn’t catch that last bit-”

“These idiots are saying that people are getting tired, listening to love songs,” Adele says, rolls her eyes at the producers, who are laughing along, and it’s clearly in good fun, but all the same, an argument. “What do you say, then?”

“Oh, um,” Niall says, refuses to falter under the watchful eyes of this team. “I’m not - I don’t think, um. I’m just the engineer-”

“So that must mean you’re the smartest, as well,” she remarks, leans back in her seat and she waits for him. “What do you think about it, then? No more love songs, or?”

He doesn’t know quite what to say. Doesn’t know how to broach the subject in the first place, when it’s such a mess in his heart. “I don’t know. Love is a very subjective word. It’s not limited to the romantic connotation that everyone associates it with. It’s very broad. You can talk about love, when you’re talking about affection for your child, adoration for a friend, fondness for - you know what, I sound ridiculous-”

“No, this is the most interested I’ve been since this day’s started,” she waves his disclaimer off, “and I completely agree. Got my little babes at home, and they’ve given me a fat lot of inspiration. Those are love songs too, you twats.”

“But these lyrics are sounding a lot less platonic than you’d like to think,” one of the producers mention, and it doesn’t come off as accusatory.  “We’re just saying. A love song nowadays would be redundant and they’re all the same, anyway.”

“Well,” Niall starts, and he flushes under all the attention given to him, but he can’t quite stop talking. Has a lot to say. “I wouldn’t say that, you know. Every love story is different. There are billions of people in this world, and how two people find each other and fall in love, those are little miracles. I don’t think it would be redundant to sing about that.

“Like, missed chances. How they’ve walked right in front of you but you didn’t see because you were tying your shoelace. Or how they were right beside you, but you turned to look at the traffic light. How you could have met them, if only the cab hadn’t gotten in the way. I mean, so many different stories. About those who’ve found each other, those who are still looking, those who’ve given up. It would be a joy to celebrate all of that.”

“You’re giving me a lot of material, mate,” she tells him, and he sees her writing on a napkin, capturing his words. It makes him blush. Doesn’t feel like this is happening, at all. “Know how I met my hubby? Spilled champagne all over his suit at this work party, and he just laughed. Went on a vacation with him to Florida a few months later, and eleven years and two babies later, here we are.”

“That’s actually adorable,” someone says, and Niall can see the slight grimace on their face, and they’re all laughing a second later.

“Must be painful, then,” she muses. “To have missed your chance? To miss the person meant for you?”

Niall thinks about it, amongst the murmured agreements with her statement, and he says, feeling a little bold, “Yeah, it hurts. But what of an opportunity you’d let go? That would hurt more, I think. You’ve already had them, had every chance to be happy for the rest of your life, but you let it go, for some reason. That would be the worst thing.”

They’re all quiet then. Niall feels like he’s said too much, but she moves forward in her seat. Stares at him, and asks, “And the best thing?”

Niall doesn’t think about it, the answer already on the tip of his tongue. “When you somehow find your way back to them, and, for whatever reason, they let you give it another chance. A new beginning. And you find yourself loving them more, this time around.”

“Well, you lucky tit,” she smirks, and it draws out a laugh from Niall, and the rest of the room joins him.

He is, though. A lucky tit.

.

Harry’s tried, tried, like honestly, to stay sane. But every time his office door opens, he looks up, not really expecting to see Niall, but getting disappointed anyway when it’s not him. Feels his heart race when someone rings up his flat, only to find that it’s Liam, or the delivery boy. Runs whenever he hears his phone ringing, quickly losing interest when it’s not him.

He’s tried. Really, really tried. And now he’s had enough.

He stands up from the Liam’s couch, puts his untouched glass of wine back on the table and moves past where Sophia’s making them a roast dinner, and takes his coat from the wardrobe. She looks up at him from where she’s peeling the potatoes, and she doesn’t look the least bit surprised.

“Okay, I’ve got the brand of olive oil you wanted- Harry?” Liam comes in through the door, bag of groceries in his arms and looking thoroughly confused as Harry shrugs on his coat, clearly with the intent to leave. “What are you, wait, are you going?”

“Yes,” he replies, tries to walk past him, but Liam blocks the entrance.

“Where do you plan on going?”

“To Niall,” Sophia answers for him, very matter-of-factly. “Going to apologize, aren’t you, love?”

“Yes,” he says again, and he maneuvers himself out the door, slipping past Liam.

“Wait, Harry,” Liam calls out, “you can’t just-”

“I’m done with things being fucked up between us,” he says, walks straight out into the common hallway. “I’m done being an idiot, I’m done not being with him. I’m going to apologize.”

“What if he doesn’t listen?” Liam asks him.

“That’s fine.”

“What if he hates you?”

“That’s fine, let him hate me,” he mutters, jabbing at the lift’s ‘down’ button.

“Harry, what if he doesn’t accept it?”

“I don’t care anymore, Liam!” he looks back, and his eyes sting with tears, but it feels like they’re from relief, rather than pain. “I don’t care. I just want to say sorry, I just want to talk to him. I just want to tell him how much I still love him, at least this last time.”

He gets in the lift as the doors open for him, doesn’t see the slight smile on Liam’s face.

He gets down to the lobby, is just about to ask the doorman for a cab, but his phone rings. Almost brushes it off until he sees the caller ID. Feels his heart stop, and he doesn’t know quite what to do for a moment, stock still as he stares at the name flashing, blonde hair and bright, bright blue, even brighter smile taking up the screen.

Snaps out of it, and swipes his finger to accept the call. “Niall.”

“ _Harry, where are you?_ ” he’s asking, and Harry can hear the sounds of London in the background.

“I’m on my way to you,” is his answer, and he feels like his heart is going into overdrive.

Niall doesn’t answer immediately, says eventually, “ _You’re on your way to me? Why?_ ”

“For what reason would you think?” he says, and his hand grips his phone tighter.

He doesn’t reply right away, again. _“Because you want to?_ ”

“No, you wanker,” Harry says, laughs wetly, and he’s crying, but they’re not from sadness or hurt. “Because I love you. I love you.”

Niall’s quiet again, and Harry takes the chance to say, “Niall, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I love you. I’m sorry-”

Niall quiets him gently, soothes him, “ _Shhhh. It’s alright_.”

The silence between their calls is unexpectedly light, and Harry can physically feel the weight on his shoulders lift. He laughs again, feels so happy.

“I love you-”

“ _Harry, I love you-_ ”

They laugh at their timing, both sounding wet and Harry doesn’t care. Says it again, and Niall does as well at the same time.

“I love you.”

“ _I love you, so much_.”

Harry’s overwhelmed by the new sensation in his chest. Tight, but because it’s never been so happy, the strangest feeling as he takes him in. Takes Niall in and allows himself to start anew.

 _“Okay, okay, don’t leave, okay?_ ” Niall tells him. “ _Where are you?_ ”

“I’m at Liam’s,” he replies.

“ _Okay, I’m in my car, I’m going to you, okay? Stay there, I’m coming to you._ ”

“Okay,” Harry says, and he’s so, so happy. Cries from how much it fills his body.

“ _Harry, I love you. So, so, so, so, so much_ ,” he tells him, sounding so sure and firm and the words sound beautiful in his ear. “ _Don’t ever forget that, alright? We’ll start over, we’ll do this right. Another chance_.”

“Yes,” is all Harry can offer, before he’s crying again, grinning between breaths because he’s so, so lucky.

“ _I love you, wait for me, alright?_ ” Niall tells him, and Harry repeats the words back to him before he hangs up.

.

Harry’s in the lobby for almost an hour, and he’s scared.

Scared that maybe, Niall changed his mind. That they’re not worth another try, that this is where their story ends.

That maybe, really, he doesn’t love Harry anymore.

He almost has another attack, takes out his inhaler before he starts heaving, and that’s when he gets the call.

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis sounds urgent, alarmed, and it’s enough to make Harry stand up from where he’s sitting.

“Lou, what-”

“ _Harry, there was an accident. A bus hit Niall’s car-_ ”

Harry loses his breath, and his world stops.

.

The doctors say he’s okay. Incredibly lucky for a crash so bad, a few broken ribs, broken arm. Few bruises here and there, and a mild concussion when he hit his head on the window. Broke the glass, and Harry shivers at the similarity between this accident and his ‘accident.’

Niall’s on the hospital bed when Harry gets there, and it’s quiet in the room. He saw Louis outside, talking on the phone with Niall’s parents, and he’d been waved off, told to go inside and stay with him. Niall’s sleeping, and Harry chokes up at the sight. Of all the people to get hurt.

He pulls the chair and sits right next to the bed. Holds Niall’s hand, and squeezes.

The squeeze back he receive in turn assures him, somewhat.

.

“Love?’ someone’s shaking him awake gently, and he groans a bit, an ache in his neck and shoulders. Sits up from where he’d rested his head on the mattress next to Niall’s arm. Sees it’s a nurse who’d shaken him, looking apologetic and she says, “I’m sorry, visiting hours are over.”

“Oh,” Harry says, looks at Niall’s sleeping form, and decides not to fight her on it. Turns to her, asks, “Can I just say good night?”

“Alright, love, but make it quick,” she says, smiling softly at him, and she leaves. Harry turns his attention back to Niall, and he stands from his seat. Leans over, places a soft kiss on his lips.

“Good night,” he says quietly, stroking his cheek. “I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He straightens back up, grips his hand one more time, and-

“Shit.”

The curse makes him snap his head back up, and Niall’s visibly wincing, blinking as he adjusts to the dim lighting of the room, and. He’s awake. Thank fucking christ, _he’s awake_.

“Niall, love,” he whispers his name like a prayer, and he beams a his love, moves a little closer and wants to hold him close, but he refrains. Wouldn’t want to bombard him. Settles for holding his hand again.

“Shit,” Niall just repeats, letting out a soft chuckle as he tries to move, but lets out a hiss of pain instead.

“Got a few broken ribs, wouldn’t risk it,” Harry tells him, and Niall looks up at him, and he watches as his blue, blue eyes widen considerably.

“Oh,” Niall stares at him, blushes, and Harry loves him so. “Oh, you’re pretty.”

He laughs, blushing himself, says, “Thank you.”

“No, like,” Niall says, shaking his head before stopping, wincing again. “Like, you can’t be from this earth. You’re too pretty. Why’d you go down to this shit place, the angels are missing you up there.”

Harry laughs again, holds his hand tighter. “I’m so happy you’re okay. I was so worried.”

“For me?” Niall says, bewildered.

“Of course, Ni,” he says, steps a little closer, brings his head down to rest his forehead against Niall’s. “I love you. I never want to see you hurt.”

“You love me?” Niall says, and it comes out as a genuine question. “Really? Are we together, or.”

“Niall?” Harry pulls back, and he’s confused. Niall stares back at him, a little blank, a little confused. “Niall.”

“I’m sorry,” Niall says, tries to smile apologetically. “I’m sure I love you, too. But I don’t know who you are. I mean, you’re really pretty and fit and I must be real lucky to have you love me-”

 _No_. “Niall, I’d done this already, stop stealing my ideas,” Harry tells him, smiles, but it comes out forced and it feels painful, on his face. “No need for you to milk this, alright? I’ve said sorry, I know it was my fault. But it’s not funny.”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Niall says, sounding so innocent and _no._

“Niall, stop it,” Harry says, and he feels his face physically drop. Feels his heart start racing again, unpleasantly. “It’s not funny.”

“I don’t,” Niall looks at him, and Harry knows he’s not joking around. Sees it in his eyes, the way he looks genuinely devastated, on his behalf. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry-”

“Stop it! It's not funny!” Harry half-yells, and it alarms Niall, and he looks so sad. Disappointed, because he can't remember. He can't remember. “No. No, no, no, no-”

Harry bites his lip, tries to stave off his tears, but it’s useless. They fall anyway, and his chest heaves with emotion.

“Love, I’m sorry, you really do need to - what’s wrong?” the nurse comes back in, stops in her tracks when she sees him crying.

“Do you have an inhaler? You look like you’re about to have an asthma attack,” Niall asks him, and it just makes him cry that much more. Niall apparently doesn’t even know who he is, and he’s still looking out for him. Caring for him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” he says between deep gasps, actually does use his inhaler. The nurse goes over to Niall once she’s approached him, after he’s shaken her off with claims of being okay, that she should check up on Niall instead.

The doctor’s in a minute later, and he goes straight to the bed. Asks him a few questions, voice too low for Harry to hear properly, but he can’t bring himself to listen properly, in the end. He can’t quite take it.

He’s brought out as the nurse tends to Niall, and Louis stands up from his spot on the wall. Looks between him and the doctor, and asks, “Well? He’s okay, right?”

“Yes, he’s fine,” the doctor tells him, but he has an unsure look on his face. “Physically, he’s perfectly sound. Let his ribs and arm heal and he should be alright.”

Louis stares hard at Harry, and turns back to the doctor. “Then why does this one look like he’s about to burst into tears and vom all over the place?”

“Well, he thinks he’s 18, and he’s just about to start his first year of uni,” the doctor explains, and Harry feels his heart drop to his stomach. Looks at Louis and sees the same expression all over his face. “He can’t seem to remember the last seven years of his life. Traumatic amnesia, seemingly retrograde, might be a residual symptom from the concussion. His medial temporal lobe got affected when his head hit and broke the window.”

“So he’s lost his memory?” Louis asks, voice low and quiet as Harry’s ever heard it.

“For now, I’m afraid so,” he replies. “I can’t quite tell you if it will be permanent or not. We’re going to have to run some tests.”

Harry and Louis are quiet, and he feels exhausted. This entire situation. Bloody fucking hell.

“So, he didn't recognize you?” Louis asks him, and he shakes his head, unable to speak.

“I’d say not to overwhelm him with too much information at once,” the doctor tells them. “But then. It wouldn't hurt to be around him. He's going to need a lot of support, not just for the physical recovery, but the emotional as well. Give him a lot of love, and things will be okay.”

“But him regaining his memory,” Louis asks, “that's not a sure thing?”

“I'm afraid not,” the doctor apologizes, looks at them quietly. “It's possible he will, possible he won't. He may remember fragments from before, but. The brain is very complex. I can't tell you for sure.”

“Okay,” Louis nods, and he's already stalking off to stew on his own. Harry knows it's his way of dealing with things.

“Thank you,” he says on their behalf, shakes his hand.

“You were his boyfriend, then?”

He pauses, then nods. Feels like the word doesn't do them justice.

“He seemed to respond to you very well. I'm sorry, for what happened.”

He nods again, too overwhelmed to talk, and he's left alone in the hallway outside Niall’s room, and he cries for what feels like the hundredth time today.

.

“Oi, you absolute dickhead, that's mine,” Louis is yelling, grabbing at the tub of Cherry Garcia Niall’s taken from him, but Niall just keeps on eating, grinning around the ice cream as Louis pokes at his cheek to get him to give it up. They've become fast friends, all over again, and Harry watches them from his perch on the couch, on the far side of the hospital room. Smiles, as Niall offers him a spoonful, only to eat it himself, resulting in laughter and more yelling from Louis.

There are flowers everywhere, stuffed toys, balloons. Cakes and cases of exotic and artisanal beer, and there are people everywhere. People have been coming and going, all introducing themselves to him, Harry's smiles when he'd seen Niall absolutely light up when Ezra Koenig, Thom Yorke, and _Adele_ , amongst others, show up to pay him a visit, can't imagine how it would feel, to meet people you've admired for forever. Harry blushes when Adele glances at him, introduces herself, and he doesn't know if it's because he's obvious with the way he's looking at Niall, but somehow, though he doesn't really know what it means, he kind of understands it, when she remarks, “ _You're the other lucky tit, then._ ”

And Niall’s been so good about it. Smiles at everyone and is so innately friendly and kind and. He's still him.

It's just him, Louis, Zayn, Liam and Sophia in the room now. Niall's family are resting in his flat, flew in on a red eye to see him as soon as possible, and it's much louder than it needs to be.

Louis is sitting on the bed, next to him, fighting over food as the Man U vs Man City game pays on the television. Zayn’s on the other side of the bed, sitting quietly on the plush hospital chair as he silently steals the chips, swiping a few at a time. It reminds Harry so much of before. Back when they'd all go out for a pint and they're all friends, have grown close, but Louis and Zayn were there first. They'd been there for him, Louis more than Zayn, but. They'd always had his back.

Liam's on the other side of the room, talking quietly on the phone. Harry knows it's for last minute details for the wedding, manages to catch something about a vegetarian option.

“Of all the ways this could have gone, it had to be this one,” Sophia says suddenly beside him. He looks over to her curiously, and she continues, “like. What you've been lying about for months, what you said happened, actually did happen, just not to you. It's strange.”

Harry doesn't feel like he's being made fun of, or berated. Sophia's always been like that. Helps him put things in perspective.

“It is,” he supposes, watches Niall cheer as Louis bounces off of the bed and yells, almost no regard for his injuries.

“Brains are weird,” she says with a shrug. “I mean, you can't do anything without the brain. Everything you do, the brain controls it all. Perception, the senses, actions, memories. It's all in that one organ. It's so strange.”

Harry nods beside her, and it is. Such a weird thing.

“Yet, with like, you hit it once the wrong way, it goes haywire,” she says. “So much can go wrong, all because of one organ that controls everything. Hit your head once, you lose your memory. It’s appalling. Something so powerful can change, with one accident.”

“I. It is, strange,” he catches himself the last minute. Never thought about it that deeply, before.

She looks at him, then she gathers him in a hug. He gives into it easily, and she tells him, “He’ll find his way to you. He’s smart, but more than that. He listens to his heart. It takes more than a head injury to make someone stop loving someone. The heart is strange in that way, then. It’s like, it's not as easy to forget. Love, affection, fondness. The brain might not remember, but the heart. It recognizes emotion.”

Harry leans into her embrace, and glances over to Niall. Niall's already been looking at them, soft smile in his face, and.

Harry doesn't know how different he'll be. What's changed and what's lost, but as he smiles back, gets a wide beam in return, happy and full of fondness, he knows that there is some truth to her words. The feeling in his heart, that's never changed, even when he hoped it would.

Hopes Niall has some of that residual affection for him, hopes it's there, though he might not recognize it.

.

“Hello, Harry,” Niall greets him as he enters, and he can't help but smile.

“You know who I am?” he asks, a little surprised, because he hadn't really had the opportunity to talk to Niall alone. Tell him about their great, complicated, but beautiful story. It's just them now, though. It's early, just half past nine, but he'd wanted to spend as much time as possible with him today.

“Louis? Louis told me you were really special to me,” Niall says, and Harry shouldn't, but he finds it endearing when Niall pauses to see if he'd gotten the name right. “I thought you might be, that first night.”

“Yeah,” he swallows, tries not to get upset. “I'm sorry, for the way I acted. I. I just wasn't expecting it. You were my life, for a very long time. I just. I was surprised. I'm sorry.”

“It's fine,” Niall tells him, smile not wavering. “I'm sorry, as well. For not remembering. I promise, if I could-”

“You know, I love you,” Harry tells him, sits on the bed, by Niall’s feet.

Niall glances up at him, then he’s got the softest look on his face. His face, it still looks the same, after all these years, but right now, with his unstyled hair falling gently over his eyes, and the way he carries himself, he looks especially young.

“I know you do,” Niall says simply. He looks so happy. “You told me. And I feel like, maybe, I loved you too?”

“Is that a question?” Harry asks him, raising an eyebrow.

Niall laughs, and it sounds so easy. “I don't know. I feel really good around you, like. I don't know. Is it silly? To say that? Because looking at you, you make me really happy. Like. I know, somehow, we fit. I know we do.”

Harry stares at him, and. It feels like a step in the right direction.

“We do. Reading first editions of The Little Prince and listening to vinyls of Sinatra. We fit.”

“The Little Prince?”

“My thing.”

“Sinatra?”

“Yours.”

“Does sound like me, actually,” Niall muses with a chuckle.

Things go silent between them, but it's a good silence. The kind that makes Harry feel like he's being wrapped up in comfort and warmth.

“Will you tell me, then?” Niall's asking him. “About us?”

And Harry remembers himself asking the same thing from Niall months ago, with the intention of it being a way to close a chapter in his life. Instead, it allowed him the opportunity to begin another.

He looks at Niall, and sees another chapter beginning. Hopeful and wishing for the best and he’s so in love with him. Every version of him. So he does what Niall did for him, then.

“Do you think you can walk?” he asks him, and Niall gives him a sly grin.

.

Niall insists on tangling their fingers together as they walk around the hospital cafeteria. It’s not an ideal setting, but it’s enough. There aren’t that many people in yet, and Harry’s so careful with him. Watches out for his ribs, makes sure the cast is on right, makes him feel safe. Secure and cared for.

Had said to Harry as they were going out of the room, “ _Your hand looks heavy, let me hold it for you._ ” And Harry had laughed, looked so unguarded and light, and Niall had reveled in it. Feels his heart settle to a comfortable pace, like he can breathe again, but there is an underlying warmth, excitement that he gets from just being around him. He’s quite sure it’s love. Sees nothing but that when he sees Harry, knows it’s the same way Harry looks at him. He’s very sure.

“You must be a dictionary-”

“Because I add meaning to your life?” he finishes, and Harry just laughs again. “Is that a thing we did? Lines?”

“Yeah,” Harry tells him, smoothing over his knuckles with the tips of his fingers, smiling tenderly at him. “It’s how we met, actually.”

“Really?” he says, and Harry smiles.

He looks at Niall as if he’d hung the bloody moon and stars in the sky. Looks so utterly fond, and Harry says to him, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

.

This is how they start over, again. Second sight.

**Author's Note:**

> salamat! (thank you!)
> 
> general idea based off of "My Amnesia Girl" (another Filipino movie)
> 
>  
> 
> [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLkj9zr0-sQ)
> 
>  
> 
> [me](http://www.castlestylan.tumblr.com)


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